Working Paper: NBER ID: w21081
Authors: Richard B. Freeman; Wei Huang
Abstract: In the past two decades China leaped from bit player in global science and engineering (S&E) to become the world's largest source of S&E graduates and the second largest spender on R&D and second largest producer of scientific papers. As a latecomer to modern science and engineering, China trailed the US and other advanced countries in the quality of its universities and research but was improving both through the mid-2010s. This paper presents evidence that China's leap benefited greatly from the country's positive response to global opportunities to educate many of its best and brightest overseas and from the deep educational and research links it developed with the US. The findings suggest that global mobility of people and ideas allowed China to reach the scientific and technological frontier much faster and more efficiently.
Keywords: China; Science; Engineering; Higher Education; International Collaboration
JEL Codes: I23; O31; O33
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| increase in domestic university enrollments (I23) | greater number of scientists and engineers (I23) |
| number of Chinese students studying abroad (I23) | China becoming the world's largest source of science and engineering graduates (O57) |
| educational advancements (I24) | increase in R&D spending and production of scientific papers (O32) |
| international collaboration (F53) | improvement in the quality of Chinese science (O39) |
| educational policies (I28) | research outputs (A29) |