Intelligently allocating research effort and funds requires deciding whether to build on recent advances or on more established knowledge. When recent advances create superior opportunities for invention, their adoption as research inputs in the invention process promotes technological progress....

The close connection between US and China in scientific research and education in the 2000s produced a large group of China-born researchers who work in the US ("diaspora") and a larger group of China-born researchers who gained US-research experience and returned to do their research in China...