The Impact of Permanent Residency Delays for STEM PhDs: Who leaves and Why

Shulamit Kahn and Megan MacGarvie

No 25175, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper assesses whether delays in obtaining permanent residency status can explain recent declines in the share of Chinese and Indian PhD graduates from US STEM programs who remain in the US after their studies. We find that newly-binding limits on permanent visas for those from China and India with advanced degrees are significantly associated with declines in stay rates. The stay rate of Chinese graduates declines by 2.4 percentage points for each year of delay, while Indian graduates facing delays of at least 5 1/2 years have a stay rate that is 8.9 percentage points lower. The per-country permanent visa cap affects a large share of STEM PhDs who are disproportionately found in fields of study that have been crucial in stimulating US economic growth yet enroll relatively few natives. Finally, results suggest that the growth of science in countries of origin has an important influence on stay rates, while macroeconomic factors such as GDP per capita affect stay rates only via their impact on science funding. We conclude that per-country limits play a significant role in constraining the supply of highly skilled STEM workers in the US economy.

JEL-codes: J61 O15 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
Note: ED LS PR
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Shulamit Kahn & Megan MacGarvie, 2019. "The impact of permanent residency delays for STEM PhDs: Who leaves and why," Research Policy, .

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25175.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The impact of permanent residency delays for STEM PhDs: Who leaves and why (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25175

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25175

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().