Study Finds U.S. Science Slipping

The United States may be losing its lead in the science and engineering fields it has long dominated, according to a recent analysis by one of Harvard’s leading labor economists.

In a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper released this month, Ascherman Professor of Economics Richard B. Freeman argued that the United States has a diminishing advantage in these fields, due mostly to the declining number of science and engineering degrees awarded in the U.S. compared to the number awarded abroad. Europe, Japan, and—surprisingly, according to Freeman—China and India are all outdoing the U.S. in this regard, the report said.

Freeman suggested that this shift might come as a result of globalization, which has gradually offered developing countries access to better education.

“The key thing going on in the world, in globalization, is the fact that we’re spreading modern technology and modern higher education throughout the world,” he said. “We had this almost monopoly on great higher education. That monopoly is naturally disappearing.”

Today, Europe produces more science and engineering Ph.D.’s than the United States, and Freeman predicted that China will outpace the U.S. by 2010.

Although this development is promising for the rest of the world, he suggested, “it spreads some negative consequences to the U.S.”

In particular, Freeman said that the current trend will lead to a decline in U.S. power, since the nation’s global standing rests on its preeminence in science and engineering,

“We’ve got to recognize that we’re going to be in a transition period where we’re not going to be the dominant force that we have been,” he said. “We’re going to be a more moderate leader in these things.”

Freeman attributes the U.S.’s earlier dominance in science and engineering to market capitalism, which gave it an economic advantage over command economies like the USSR and China. As those countries turn to market capitalism, the U.S. will begin to lose its lead, he said.

Freeman also attributed this decline to weakening science and engineering job markets in the United States. If wages are too low, American students will not be drawn into the industry.

“The same wage that is wonderful for a Third World country is not so great for an American,” he said. “If you want more American kids in these areas, and if you put more money on the table, you’ll get these kids.”

Cabot Professor of Public Policy Kenneth S. Rogoff praised Freeman’s paper, but said he hopes that the United States’ flexible market economy and education system will help the country survive a changing economic climate.

“I think, for the moment, that U.S. universities are so preeminent...that that’s not about to change overnight,” he said—even in spite of China’s attempts to build a series of elite technical institutes.

Rogoff said the United States must keep its doors open to foreigners, because much U.S. strength in science and engineering comes from foreigners who take advantage of America’s unparalleled education system and then decide to live here afterward.

“I’ve had the concern for some time that, post-9/11, the United States, by cracking down on immigration, was making it more difficult for top-level foreign graduate students to come to the United States,” he said.

Freeman said he did not think that a downward adjustment in American wages would be necessary to stem the tide.

“We’d like to see their wages go up,” he said. “It’s not that the wages of the advanced countries get worse, it’s that the wages of the poor guys get better.”

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.