Study Outlines U.S. Falling Lead In Science - Forbes.com

From Forbes Magazine:

To the extent that human capital in the fields of science and engineering is important for economic growth, a recent study of declining U.S. preeminence is of particular salience. A working paper released last month by Richard Freeman of Harvard University suggests four ways in which U.S. science and technological leadership is under threat.

-- An increasing number of high-tech companies are relocating research and development facilities to China and India. This aims to develop new products for the global market, rather than just for the domestic Chinese or Indian markets.

-- U.S. and other developed-world companies are also off-shoring non-R&D skilled work, primarily to India but also to China and other developing countries.

-- According to an index of technical prowess compiled by the Georgia Institute of Technology, China in the last decade has reduced its technological-capability deficit to the U.S.

-- The share of high-tech products in China's exports has risen. Between 1989 and 2001, the U.S. share of global high-tech exports declined.

The paper identifies two major trends affecting the U.S. science and engineering labor market:

-- By 2001-02, the U.S. share of students worldwide enrolled in tertiary education was 14%, less than half the proportion in 1970. Enrollment numbers have been rising far more quickly in Europe, and particularly in China. These divergent trends are particularly marked in science and engineering.

-- It has become relatively less attractive financially for prospective U.S. students to study S&E. Foreign-born employees and students are likely to continue to ensure that the U.S. economy has an adequate supply of scientists and engineers. However, a sustained interruption of the inflow of these foreign scientists and engineers would constitute a risk to U.S. R&D capability.

The paper suggests that the greatest threats to U.S. economic leadership will come from China and India. These two countries' large populations mean that, even if only a small proportion of their workforces are dedicated to S&E, the absolute numbers of S&E workers will still be large, contributing to enhanced R&D capabilities. Moreover, these countries will for the foreseeable future also continue to enjoy a labor cost advantage over the U.S. in the S&E field.

However, while the globalization of the S&E workforce is likely to weaken and in the long-term perhaps undermine U.S. economic leadership, the strength of the U.S. national innovation system as a whole will slow its loss of economic leadership.

This pretty much speaks for itself. People are realizing the importance of science and engineering with respect to our economic future. Now it is only a question of weather we will actually do anything about it before it is too late. Plus, it really is hard to see how the U.S. government will stand in the way of multinational corporations in their quest to reduce costs - the globalization of science and engineering helps reduce those costs for a multinational. However, this exodus of science and engineering jobs and research dollars are not helping the U.S. tax paying citizens.

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