The Hindu Business Line : Advances, declines and potential brakes

CALL it witch-hunt or whatever, but it was sheer curiosity that let me hit the site www.lib.msu.edu and see a page titled `Declassified Documents and Other Sources for Secrets'. From there, a link takes me to the `Electronic Reading Room' of the CIA (www.foia.cia.gov) and a useful listing provides the names of the 25 `Frequently Requested Records', top second of which is titled `Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the future with Non-government Experts', created in 2000.

"Revolution in science and technology will improve the quality of life," notes the report, stating the obvious. "We do not know to what extent technology will benefit, or further disadvantage, disaffected national populations, alienated ethnic and religious groups, or the less developed countries. We do not know to what degree lateral or `side-wise' technology will increase the threat from low technology countries or groups," concedes the CIA. Advances in science and technology will pose national security challenges of uncertain character and scale, it adds.

Of special interest is a list of `potential brakes to growth'. One of the entries reads, `China and/or India fail to sustain high growth', and predicts that China's ambitious goals for economic reform will be difficult to achieve. "Failure by India to implement reforms would prevent it from achieving sustained growth," is the India angle in the report.

Whatever its degree of power, India's rising ambition will further strain its relations with China, as well as complicate its ties with Russia, Japan, and the West - and continue its nuclear standoff with Pakistan, ends the paragraph, quite pessimistically.

It is, therefore, with a chuckle that I read a June 2005 research paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org) titled `Does globalization of the scientific/engineering workforce threaten US economic leadership?' and written by Richard B. Freeman. As the abstract informs, the paper develops four propositions that show that changes in the global job market for science and engineering (S&E) workers are eroding US dominance in S&E, which diminishes comparative advantage in high tech production and creates problems for American industry and workers.

First, the US's share of the world's S&E graduates is declining rapidly as European and Asian universities, particularly from China, have increased S&E degrees even as US degree production has stagnated, writes Freeman.

Second proposition is that the job market has worsened for young workers in S&E fields relative to many other high-level occupations; therefore, US students are discouraged from going on in S&E, though the field still has sufficient rewards to attract large immigrant flows, particularly from developing countries, he states.

In retrospect, I guess the CIA was almost right about science and technology posing challenges; for, their worry turns out to be not so much about `advances' as about declines.

E&OE@TheHindu.co.in

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