Migration and Innovation: The Relationship between Outbound Tertiary International Students and Patent Applications in Origin Countries

Authors

Heidi Luu, Illinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow

Abstract

Students around the world who choose to pursue higher education abroad quadrupled from 1.3 million in 1990 to 5 million in 2004 (University of Oxford, 2017, p. 14). Considering the ever-increasing trends of migration, especially the migration of students who seek education abroad, and the potentials in the line of research on the economic impact of this sub-type of international migrants on origin countries, my study will investigate the relationship between students seeking tertiary education abroad and the number of patents applications as an indicator of innovation in origin countries. For this purpose, I will utilize more recent data sets from the UNESCO's Institute for Statistics (UIS) and the World Bank's World Development Indicators (WID) and employ Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimation of regression coefficients to analyze the degree of linear association between the two variables. Control variables will also be added following previous research on patenting activities and the determinants of the number of patent applications.

Recommended Citation

Luu, Heidi (2019) "Migration and Innovation: The Relationship between Outbound Tertiary International Students and Patent Applications in Origin Countries," The Park Place Economist: Vol. 27
Available at: https://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/parkplace/vol27/iss1/19