Research on the Effects of International Students on Regional Economy in China

International talent engagement is an important approach for a country to pursue the strategic human resources, realize national rejuvenation, and build advantages in international competition. As one of the mainstreams in international talent engagement, international student education in China has entered a new phase to focus on quality and efficiency after the rapid growth in the scale of international students. The economic benefits of international students have been widely discussed, but few researches have proven the positive effects of international student education on China’s regional economic development from the perspective of knowledge and technology spillovers by viewing them as talents. This research took provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities as sample units to prove the inverted U-shaped relation between the talent engagement scale of international students in China and the development of regional economy. The robustness test results showed that the proportion of “Double First-class” universities significantly affects this relation. Therefore, as a source of talent engagement, international student education should control the scale and prioritize quality, and seize the historic opportunity of building “Double-first Class” universities to better serve the national strategy in terms of economic development.