China's "Great Leap Forward" in Science and Engineering / Richard B. Freeman, Wei Huang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Freeman, Richard B.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Huang, Wei.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w21081.

NBER working paper series no. w21081

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2015.

Summary:

In the past two decades China leaped from bit player in global science and engineering (S&E) to become the world's largest source of S&E graduates and the second largest spender on R&D and second largest producer of scientific papers. As a latecomer to modern science and engineering, China trailed the US and other advanced countries in the quality of its universities and research but was improving both through the mid-2010s. This paper presents evidence that China's leap benefited greatly from the country's positive response to global opportunities to educate many of its best and brightest overseas and from the deep educational and research links it developed with the US. The findings suggest that global mobility of people and ideas allowed China to reach the scientific and technological frontier much faster and more efficiently.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2015.