To Stay or Not to Stay: Location Choice of Foreign Born U.S. Doctorates

Over the past few decades, foreign-born U.S. PhDs have played a crucial role in shaping the landscape of the U.S. skilled workforce. Not all foreign-born U.S. doctorates however choose to remain in the U.S. workforce. This paper uses a new set of data – the International Survey of Doctoral Recipients (ISDR) - to explore factors that are relevant for location choice of work for foreign-born individuals receiving their doctorates from the U.S. This data set is unique in a number of respects and alleviates current challenges facing the research community. Our analysis identifies a number of demographic and country specific factors having implications for the location choice. We also find that as a part of a growing trend, foreign-born U.S. PhDs who choose to emigrate are positively selected in terms of skills as measured by the quality of the programs they attended. This result deserves attention since it implies that the U.S. may be losing premium talent to global competition.