IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2512.11146.html

A Quarter of US-Trained Scientists Eventually Leave. Is the US Giving Away Its Edge?

Author

Listed:
  • Dror Shvadron
  • Hansen Zhang
  • Lee Fleming
  • Daniel P. Gross

Abstract

Using newly-assembled data from 1980 through 2024, we show that 25% of scientifically-active, US-trained STEM PhD graduates leave the US within 15 years of graduating. Leave rates are lower in the life sciences and higher in AI and quantum science but overall have been stable for decades. Contrary to common perceptions, US technology benefits from these graduates' work even if they leave: though the US share of global patent citations to graduates' science drops from 70% to 50% after migrating, it remains five times larger than the destination country share, and as large as all other countries combined. These results highlight the value that the US derives from training foreign scientists - not only when they stay, but even when they leave.

Suggested Citation

  • Dror Shvadron & Hansen Zhang & Lee Fleming & Daniel P. Gross, 2025. "A Quarter of US-Trained Scientists Eventually Leave. Is the US Giving Away Its Edge?," Papers 2512.11146, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2512.11146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.11146
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2512.11146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.