Indian Pharma Scientists Return Home

Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal featured a piece on Indian scientists now returning to India. As with Chinese engineers, many of the scientists have formerly been with large American firms- in this case, pharmaceuticals.

On the whole, though, I believe it's a good thing. India becomes more wired into global trade, as its scientists begin to develop new medicines and seek to export them. It will open India up, much as the evolving economy of China will for that country.

In time, Indian pharma wages will rise, and even it will gradually become less competitive, on a comparative basis. Of course, as more Indian professionals return and start competing firms in technology, pharmaceuticals, commodities, etc, their standards of living will rise, and they will consume more international goods and services. Many, no doubt, will be American in origin.

Perhaps, over the next decade, Western firms will begin to acquire some of these Indian startups, in the same way they often buy ideas and talent in the US that left the paralysis of large corporations, to start new businesses. We don't yet know what India will adopt as a policy involving this sort of acquisition activity, but it may well become more important for world trade in the coming years. Will Western countries and markets remain open to Indian and Chinese markets that constrict asset purchases, ownership, and economic participation by foreign companies?

How will a Democratic US Congress view the loss of higher-paying, management jobs to countries such as India? Especially if the latter maintains trade barriers, while attempting to export newly-developed products and services?

This is free trade. Isn't this what we, as Americans, ultimately want? Comparative advantage and mobility work. If this is what it takes to re-energize some sectors of large corporate America, as it sees an ethnic brain drain, so be it.

The migration of highly-educated talent back to home countries may, on one hand, look like a net loss for America. However, it may well result, as in China, in the accelerated Westernization of these formerly-third-world countries, so that their economic, social and political values and agendas begin to more closely resemble those of America and her Western allies. As we move further into what promises to be a long global war on terror, initiated by radical elements of Islam, can it be a bad thing to have the world's two most populous nations begin to adopt America's perspectives on economic growth, development, and living standards?

Rather than see a brain drain, perhaps we should view developments such as the Indian scientists returning home as a net loss to the US, perhaps we should see it as successful export of, and prostyletizing on behalf of, our values and socio-economic system. Much cheaper, and more effective, than military conquest of foreign lands. This way, our economic system becomes embedded into other cultures, and fosters nascent democratic political appetites, as well.