Stéphane Lhuillery CEMI - Collège du Management de la Technologie

1. Comments on “Foreign Students and the international diffusion of scientific and Technological knowledge”/Megane MacGarvie • EXTRA- DIME Conference • Lausanne September 29-30 2006 Stéphane Lhuillery CEMI - Collège du Management de la Technologie EPFL - École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

2. Overview • Does scientific knowledge leak from US universities to countries from where PhDs come from? • Does US universities capture some knowledge coming from countries from where their PhDs come from? Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

3. Hot topic • Is the increasing number of foreign born US PhD a means to diffuse technology outside USA? (forward citation) • Benefit to US technology? (backward citations) OK! but in another way of wondering: Does inventors need a background that would be required once back in their native country? Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

4. On methodology • Interesting symmetric methodology: two way flows: • Works for north-north sets of countries • Works for north south sets of countries • Includes mobility aspects (new in the field of international tech flows literature) • Careful about possible lags and alternative definitions • Using USPTO data • Focused on PhD as a representative sample for inventors Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

5. On methodology • Interesting symmetric methodology: two way flows: • Works for north-north sets of countries • Works for north south sets of countries • Includes mobility aspects (new in the field of international tech flows literature) • Careful about possible lags and alternative definitions • Using USPTO data • Focused on PhD as a representative sample for inventors Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

6. Points of discussion • Problems with patent and patent citations on developing countries • Citations can be made during examination • Imagine a PhD back to Argentina for a job at the Buenos Aires Patent Office! Citation from US will be added! • The choice of USPTO : • Proba of country j to file in the USA: depends on their exportation market. Not sure that a Taiwanese firm hiring a fresh PhD from MIT will patent in USA. • Thus the coefficient may be seriously biased and international knowledge flows undermined. • Solution? Really hard ! • Using OECD triadic patents? Scarcity problem! • tracking citations of university i in Japanese patent data files? Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

7. Points of discussion Problems with patent and patent citations (2) - Definition not clear about what is considered as a patent originating in country j: Is it a US patent filed by a firm with an address in country j or invented by inventors located in country j? Ex: PhD back in their home developing countries are more likely to be hired by foreign multinationals that are often the only ones investing in R&D. But the affiliate patents in fact through the US head company and its NYC law department and goes afterward for a PCT procedure: the invention cites a US PRO patent but is considered as a US patent! Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI

8. Points of discussion • Problem with the PhD level to explore international TT? • - The choice of PhD is less convenient than the master level: Researchers in industries are more likely to be masters than PhDs. • Possible to use the same US survey but on masters? • The PhD student flows may not match the flows of qualified peoples. • Is there any means to introduce qualified emigration and immigration data from and to OECD countries (available on www.oecd.org) to correlate flows to table 2 and even table 3? Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI