Bootstrapping Science? The Impact of a “Return Human Capital” Programme on Chinese Research Productivity

Elliott Ash, David Cai, Mirko Draca and Shaoyu Liu
Additional contact information
David Cai: ETH Zurich
Mirko Draca: University of Warwick, CAGE
Shaoyu Liu: Columbia University

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the impact of a large-scale scientist recruitment program – China’s Junior Thousand Talents Plan (青年千人计划) – on the productivity of recruited scholars and their local peers in Chinese host universities. Using a comprehensive dataset of published scientific articles, we estimate effects on quantity and quality in a matched difference-in-differences framework. We observe neutral direct productivity effects for participants over a 6-year post-period: an initial drop is followed by a fully offsetting recovery. However, the program participants collaborate at higher rates with more junior China-based co-authors at their host institutions. Looking to peers in the hosting department, we observe positive and rising productivity impacts for peer scholars, equivalent to approximately 0.6 of a publication per peer scholar in the long-run. Heterogeneity analysis and the absence of correlated resource effects point to the peer effect being rooted in a knowledge spillover mechanism.

Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-eff, nep-sog and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w ... erp_1416_-_draca.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Bootstrapping Science? The Impact of a Return Human Capital Programme on Chinese Research Productivity (2022)
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:wrk:warwec:1416

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().