Intellectual Property, the Immigration Backlog, and a Reverse Brain-Drain: America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part III / SSRN, 22 August 2007
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1008366
VIVEK WADHWA ; GUILLERMINA JASSO ; BEN RISSING ; GARY GEREFFI ; RICHARD B. FREEMAN
"This paper is the third in a series of studies focusing on immigrants' contributions to the competitiveness of the US economy. Earlier research revealed a dramatic increase in the contributions of foreign nationals to US intellectual property over an eight-year period. In this paper, we offer a more refined measure of this change and seek to explain this increase with an analysis of the immigrant-visa backlog for skilled workers. The key finding from this research is that the number of skilled workers waiting for visas is significantly larger than the number that can be admitted to the United States. This imbalance creates the potential for a sizeable reverse brain-drain from the United States to the skilled workers' home countries."