Workshop on the Role of Immigrants and Foreign Students in Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

外国出生的人在美国科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)劳动力中扮演着越来越重要的角色。这次研讨会强调了当前的研究情况，以及关于移民和外国学生在科学、创新和创业方面的作用的更多研究的必要性。会议的目标是增进对有助于美国保持并继续发展一支素质最高、多样化和有弹性的STEM劳动力的因素的了解。了解创新者和科学家的劳动力市场是如何运作的，对于了解创新和经济增长的驱动力非常重要。然而，STEM工人的劳动力市场是复杂的，经济学家并没有完全了解其动态。一些经济学家提出，外国学生申请专利或发表科学文章的可能性高得不成比例，而另一些人则辩称，接纳大量外国学生会降低在美国出生的科学家的收入，并削弱对本国科学家进入科学职业生涯的激励。研究表明，移民比原住民更有可能创办以科学为基础的新企业，但其中的原因及其对政策的影响还没有完全开发出来。在目前关于移民的公开辩论的背景下，迫切需要就移民对STEM劳动力和创新的经济影响提供证据并建立共识。研讨会旨在刺激和分享关于高技能移民和STEM劳动力的学术研究，综合这些研究并将其传播给政策和商业社区，并与这些社区进行对话，向研究人员通报尚未回答的问题。近年来，出现了新的数据集和有希望的新的因果推断经验方法，这将对高技能STEM相关移民的经济学文献做出重大贡献。在移民和创新领域出现了几个主题的新工作。最近研究中出现的新主题的例子包括与H-1B签证政策有关的工作；外国学生对美国科学知识的生产和传播以及对STEM领域本地教育入学、就业和工资的影响；在美国接受培训的科学家和工程师的回流移民；以及移民高科技创业。讲习班邀请有兴趣的学术和非学术专家就这些主题进行对话。

The foreign-born play an increasingly important role in the US Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce. This workshop highlights current research and the need for additional research on the roles of immigrants and foreign students in science, innovation and entrepreneurship. The goal of the conference is to increase understanding of the factors that will help the United States maintain and continue to develop a STEM labor force that is of the highest quality as well as diverse and resilient. Understanding how labor markets for innovators and scientists work is important for learning about the drivers of innovation and economic growth. Yet labor markets for STEM workers are complex and their dynamics are not fully understood by economists. Some economists have suggested that foreign students are disproportionately more likely to patent or publish scientific articles, while others have argued that admitting large numbers of foreign students reduces earnings for US-born scientists and weakens incentives for natives to enter scientific careers. Research has shown that immigrants are more likely to start new science-based businesses than natives, but the reasons for this and the implications for policy have not been fully developed. In the context of the current public debate on immigration, there is a pressing need for evidence and consensus-building on the economic impacts of immigration on the STEM workforce and innovation. The workshop is designed to stimulate and share academic research on high-skilled immigration and the STEM labor force, synthesize and disseminate this research to the policy and business communities, and engage in dialogue with these communities to inform researchers about unanswered questions. In recent years, new datasets and promising new empirical approaches to causal inference have emerged that will make significant contributions to the economics literature on high-skilled STEM-related immigration. New work has appeared on several themes within the area of immigration and innovation. Examples of emerging themes in recent research include work related to H-1B visa policies; impacts of foreign students on the production and diffusion of scientific knowledge in the US and on native educational enrollment, employment and wages in STEM fields; return migration of US-trained scientists and engineers; and immigrant high-technology entrepreneurship. The workshop engages interested academic and non-academic experts in a dialogue on these themes.