China's Brain Gain at the High End: An Assessment of Thousand Youth Talents Program

While studies have viewed the effect of Chinese talent-attracting programs launched by government since reform and open door policy, little of them has assessed these programs empirically and pertinently. This article intends to assess an important program - the Thousand Youth Talents Program (TYTP). Frist, this paper proposed a transnational migration matrix of the academics to clarify the dynamic mechanism of academic brain gain at the high end. Then, the Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression model are used to empirically analyze the policy effect of TYTP. The results show that, academic ability have double edged impacts on brain gain at the high end, some scholars whose last employer's academic ranking is world's Top100 have stronger willing to return, and the negative effect of academic ranking decreases with time passing; while scholars with a tenure-track position, a tenure position or a permanent position tend to stay overseas, and the hazard rate of staying increases with age. The older scholars have more intentions to go back China, while gender was not a significant factor influencing academic return at the high end. That is, the talent-attracting programs has partly succeeded in bringing back the academics at the high end.