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

2. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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?

3. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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?

4. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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 On methodology

5. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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 On methodology

6. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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?

7. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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!

8. Collège du Management de la Technologie – CDM Chaire en Economie et Management de l'Innovation – CEMI 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?www.oecd.org