Are We Losing the Global Race for Talent?
Other industrialized countries recognize the importance of human capital for economic growth, and they have ratcheted up recruitment of the world's mobile talent. Meanwhile, the U.S., the undisputed leader in attracting global talent, has erected barriers for skilled migrants and watches passively as they stay home or go elsewhere.
America has seen the number of legal migrants, who tend to be more educated, fall by nearly a third over the past few years -- much more sharply than less educated illegal immigrants, according to the Pew Hispanic Research Center. Enrollment of foreign students in U.S. higher education declined for the first time since the 1950s. And when Congress failed to extend legislation that tripled the quota for highly skilled workers under the H-1B program, the number allowed in under this program has fallen as well. This ambivalence towards foreign talent risks depriving U.S. universities and businesses of the high-octane fuel that helps drive the American innovation machine.
The U.S. economy relies on this fuel. In science and engineering, almost a quarter of the college-educated workers were foreign-born; among workers with engineering doctorates, a staggering 51% were foreign-born, according to the 2000 census.
Now is not the time to scale back foreign recruitment. The explosive growth of higher education in many developing countries, particularly in Asia, has caused a perceptible, if gradual, shift in the global talent pool. China and India are producing more engineers than all industrial countries combined.
Meanwhile, larger developing countries have new opportunities to attract jobs for skilled workers and keep them at home. Today's skilled jobs are increasingly service jobs, and, unlike manufacturing jobs, service work is skill-intensive rather than capital-intensive. With the rising educational attainment in many developing countries, and the low capital costs of outsourcing service labor, developing countries have an emerging competitive advantage.
Voters in industrialized countries can either allow more immigration or watch white-collar jobs go abroad. For example, in the U.S., H-1B visa issuance declined sharply after 2001 (from 195,000 to 65,000 today). Less access to skilled workers from India -- where the most H-1B beneficiaries came from -- has been followed by the growth of outsourcing to that country. In 1978, IBM had to close its operations in India; this year IBM's India operations will employ more than any other non-U.S. country.
In decades past, R&D was one activity that multinational corporations kept firmly within the "home" country. This, too, is changing. The number of multinational R&D outfits in China has grown by an order of magnitude over the past decade, even though China is not renowned for its enforcement of intellectual-property rights. More firms will be driven to contract overseas as services become more tradable, contracts become more feasible and cost pressures from emerging-market firms mount.
U.S. firms will increasingly have to compete against other industrial nations to attract skilled migrants. American success in attracting global talent is being emulated by other countries. Canada, Australia and the U.K. have all reformed immigration policy to better target and increase their share of skilled immigrants. Security concerns are valid; but the U.S. has made progress in reducing security-screening-related backlogs.
Do all these highly skilled immigrants increase global insecurity? Since the most sought-after immigrants are also the ones most capable of driving institutional development at home, "creaming" the most talented, especially from small, poor countries, risks undermining their political and economic development and, in the worst case, leading them to become failed states.
Against this view, some argue that remittances compensate for the brain drain. But while the increasing amounts of money sent home do help, the argument is mistaken on three counts:
First, remittances come mostly from low-skilled workers. Physicians and managers are far more likely to come from the institution-building middle-class whose families back home need money much less. Second, money alone is not enough. Just as foreign-aid has not guaranteed development, countries that receive the most remittances relative to the size of their economy -- from Haiti to Somalia -- have not developed as a result. Finally, remittances mainly augment consumption, though there is evidence that they fund education, and microbusinesses. The lack of broader investment is no surprise given weak institutions, a consequence (and cause) of human-capital flight.
Pressuring rich countries to stop admitting people, however, is no way to raise living standards of those born in developing countries. Through policy we can, however, make it easier for migrants to stay connected and act as a positive force for political and economic development in their home countries. Both sending and receiving countries benefit most when migration is temporary.
Critics point out that temporary migration is often anything but. However, skilled workers are much less likely than the unskilled to remain in a country illegally. But many are stymied by policy barriers to circulatory migration, such as the need to apply for a new visa after a short visit home.
Temporary visas with limits on renewal, and limited-duration Social Security numbers, could be coupled with incentives for skilled migrants to return home. Pension benefits could be made portable, with part vested in the country of origin if the migrant did not return. The Bush administration has proposed a large temporary-visa program that includes a carrot (access to funds in individual pension accounts upon return) and a stick (time-limited visas). Both are steps in the right direction.
Foreign talent has helped make the U.S. economy the world's most productive and innovative. Time spent in the U.S. by foreign citizens has also been a crucial means by which American values and institutions have been transferred around the world. Raising barriers to talented foreign students and workers might yield short-term political gains, but the long-term economic consequences will be much less salubrious.
Mr. Kapur is a government and Asian studies professor at the University of Texas-Austin. Mr. McHale is an economics professor at Queen's School of Business in Kingston, Ontario. Together they wrote "Give Us Your Best and Brightest" (Center for Global Development, 2005).
美国吸引全球人才是否落后了？
其他的发达国家都清楚人力资本对一国经济发展的重要性，都在大力吸引全球各地的有智之士。然而，全球有智之士一直最向往的美国却开始摆出种种障碍，阻止有技术的移民进入美国，戴上有色眼镜看待国内的移民。
根据Pew Hispanic research Center的调研，最近几年美国的合法移民──往往接受过较好教育──的数量减少了将近三分之一，大大超过了教育程度较低的非法移民的减少幅度。美国高等教育院校的外国学生入学数量也出现了50年代以来的首次下滑。此外，国会(Congress)未能通过将H-1B签证配额提高至三倍的立法，能通过这个渠道进入美国的技术熟练工人的人数也已经迅速减少。这种对待国外有智之士的矛盾态度很可能剥夺美国大学和企业的旺盛活力，而这一点正是推动美国创新体系不断发展的动力。
美国经济依赖于此。美国2000年人口普查数据显示，在科学和工程领域，大约四分之一接受过大学教育的工人都是在国外出生的；获得工程学博士学位的工人当中，高达51%的人都是国外出生的。
现在并不是收缩海外招生的时候。以亚洲为最的许多发展中国家高等教育的爆炸性增长已经给国际人才库带来了变化。中国和印度培养的工程师数量超过了所有工业化国家的总和。
此外，较大的发展中国家还有新的优势来吸引技术熟练工人前往，并吸引他们留在该国。当今世界，技术工种当中服务行业的比例越来越高，而且和制造业工作不同的是，服务业工种是技能密集型而非资本密集型的工种。发展中国家的教育水平不断改善，加之外包服务业岗位资本成本较低的特色，在吸引国际型人才方面发展中国家的优势日益显现。
发达国家的选民要么允许接纳更多移民，要么就只好眼睁睁看著白领职位流失海外。举例来说，2001年以后，美国H-1B签证的发放数量迅速减少，从当年的195,000份锐减至目前的65,000份。印度技术熟练工人──H-1B签证持有比例最高的人群──移民美国的途径越来越窄，随之而来的就是向印度外包工作岗位的数量越来越高。1978年，美国国际商业机器公司(IBM)曾经被迫关闭了印度业务；但今年IBM印度业务部门赠聘的员工人数要高于任何其他非美国国家。
几十年来，研发是跨国公司严格控制在“自己国内”的一项业务。但就是这一点现在也在改变。最近十年，即便中国的知识产权保护力度尚不能令人满意，中国的跨国公司研发中心数量仍呈几何级数增长。服务业可贸易程度的提高，合约条款更加灵活多变，以及来自发展中市场的成本压力日益增加，这些都会促使越来越多的公司签署海外合约。
在吸引技术熟练的移民这方面，美国公司会面临与其他发达国家之间越来越激烈的竞争。美国成功吸引全球各地人才的成功范例正在被其他国家效仿。加拿大、澳大利亚和英国都改革了移民政策，以便更好更多地吸引技术熟练的移民。考虑安全隐患是对的，但美国在这方面的进展远远落后了。
那么这些技术高度熟练的移民会不会威胁全球安全呢？那些最抢手的移民也是最有能力推动国内体制发展的人们，“掠夺”最有才华的人，尤其是从小国、穷国吸引有智之士可能会损及这些国家的政治和经济发展，出于最糟糕的考虑，可能会让这些国家一败涂地。
针对这一点，有人提出向这些国家提供资金援助，以补偿知识外流的带来的损害。但是虽然汇回他们国内的资金越来越多，这种观点却从三个方面被曲解了：
首先，大部分汇款来自技术熟练程度较低的工人。培养出医生和经理的家庭一般不大急需钱财。其次，只有钱是不够的。就像外资援助不能保障一国发展一样，从海地到索马里，海外劳工大量汇回资金的国家并没有因此发展起来。第三，汇回来的钱多半用于消费，虽然有证据表明部分资金用到了教育和小型企业的发展上。由于制度不完善（这既是人才外流的原因，也是结果），缺乏广泛投资也就毫不奇怪了。
但是，迫使富国停止接纳移民也不是提高发展中国家人民的生活水平的办法。不过，我们可以通过相关的政策，让移民与出生国的联系和来往更加紧密，成为当地政治和经济发展的有利推动因素。短期移民给移出国和移入国都能带来最大的好处。
批评人士指出，短期移民什么也算不上。但是，与非技术工人相比，技术熟练的工人不太可能非法居留某地。但政策障碍却妨碍了他们移出移入，比如短期探家后又要申请新签证等等。
对技术熟练移民可以发放附带延期限制、社会保险号码有效期限制的短期签证，再加上其他措施，鼓励他们回国。养老金福利可以转移，如果他们不回国，部分养老金也要划归他们本国。布什(Bush)政府提交了一份大规模短期签证计划，胡萝卜（回国时可提取个人养老帐户金额）与大棒（签证有效期）并举。这都是正确的做法。
在国外人才的帮助下，美国经济成为全球最有活力、生产率最高的经济体。外国公民在美国度过的时间也是美国人价值观和社会体制逐渐发生转变的重要途径之一。提高外国学生和工人的入境壁垒可能会得到短期内的政治好处，但长期经济影响会非常不利。
（编者按：Devesh Kapur是美国德州大学奥斯汀分校政府和亚洲研究学教授。John McHale是加拿大皇后商学院经济学教授。他们合著有《Give Us Your Best and Brightest》一书。）
