Notes from:Economics of Talent Conference, Fall 2026
A one-day NBER conference organised by Glenn Ellison, Britta Glennon and Gaurav Khanna, supported by Carina Initiatives and the Digital Harbor Foundation, on where scientific and inventive talent comes from, who gets to develop it and where it ends up: elite universities and admissions, PhD programmes, student loans, H-1B visas, emigrating scientists, returnees, political regimes, wartime labs, managers and accelerators. Eleven papers in forty- and twenty-minute slots, no discussants. The keynote moderated discussion with Doug Rand is not on the recording.
Full day
- Friends in Higher Places: Social Fit and University Choice higher education · social learning · UK · field experiment
- Will The University Endowment Tax Slow Scientific Progress? Evidence from Elite Economics PhD Programs PhD training · economics profession · endowment tax · higher education
- How Far Can Inclusion Go? The Long-term Impacts of Preferential College Admissions affirmative action · college admissions · RCT · Chile
- Long-Run Effects of H-1B Immigration on the U.S. Economy H-1B · high-skilled immigration · production networks · productivity
- Borrowing for Breakthroughs: Student Loans and Innovation student loans · innovation · patents · lost Einsteins
- A Quarter of US-Trained Scientists Eventually Leave. Is the US Giving Away Its Edge? scientist emigration · STEM PhDs · brain drain · patent citations
- The Return(s) of Superstar Scientists return migration · China · scientists · economic history
- Dictators, Democracies and Discoveries: Political Institutions and the Creation of Knowledge democracy · science · political institutions · economic history
- Tapping into Scientific Talent: The Rise of Corporate and Public R&D in Japan's Chemical Industry directed technical change · Japan · R&D · economic history
- Managing Innovation in Firms managers · innovation · multinationals · personnel economics
- Silicon Valley Everywhere? Place-Based Innovation Policy and the Direction of Entrepreneurial Entry entrepreneurship · place-based policy · accelerators · attention