“There is no shortage of students studying for careers in Math and Science. There is a shortage of jobs. That’s the simply bottom line finding of a new study from the Urban Institute.

The study shows that between 1985 and 2000 435,000 U.S. citizens and permanent residents a year graduated with Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees in Science and Engineering. That’s three times the number of jobs in Science and Engineering added per year, 150,000 during that time.

Separately Michael Teitelbaum at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation told Congress last week that neither he nor a separate study by the RAND Corporation can find any evidence of worker shortages. These studies are not anomalies.

VIVEK WADHWA, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Bottom line is that all of our research at Duke and now at Harvard shows the same thing. That there is no shortage of engineers; there’s no shortage of scientists. Companies aren’t going abroad because of skills. They’re going abroad because it’s cheaper.”

“As a result, Wadhwa says that more than half of the engineering graduate students at Duke don’t pursue engineering as a career and there is another indicator that the market is anything but short of scientists and engineers.”

“Wages in the science and engineering fields over the last five years when adjusted for inflation have been basically flat.”

“… that’s the Urban Institute, the Alfred P. Sloan (ph) Foundation, Duke, Harvard, the RAND Corporation. Studies done independently of each other, different researches, different funding, all reaching the same basic conclusion that there is no worker shortage.”

“… those companies either off-shore the work or as you mentioned at the top, demand more H-1B visas and then pay those workers less”

“BEN BERNANKE, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN: Simply producing more engineers and scientists may not be the answer because the labor market for those workers will simply reflect lower wages or, perhaps, greater unemployment for those — for those workers.”

“… says 40 percent of the engineers at Duke end up not going into engineering because the salaries aren’t there when they graduate. They go into investment banking.”

Also the growth boom wasn’t only driven by exports, although exports played a large role. It was mostly domestic investment. One reason that China had an export boom is that export industries are one way that non-state enterprises can find financing, since they could get overseas credit.

Also, I think that people are quickly forgetting that during the boom, export industries were considered a good thing by people that believed that private enterprises are inherently good, and state-owned enterprises are inherently bad.

Personally, I think that AEI is ending up with rather incoherent policy suggestions, because the different parts of their world view are colliding with each other and with reality. In particular, I think that they are trying rather unsuccessfully to salvage the idea that the ideal economic system involves markets with minimal government intervention. The trouble is that it’s very hard to figure out how to apply that principle to the current situation.

Too Much Fed: IMO, it was because the labor market became oversupplied in the USA. In the 1990’s we were losing some jobs to outsourcing, but new ones were created because of computers, cell phones, and the internet. When the nasdaq went down in 2000, more jobs went overseas and some others just went away. Add in permanent WTO entry for china, and even more jobs went overseas.

I don’t think that the labor market is oversupplied. If you had education and connections, then the 2000′s were a great time for you.

The big problem wasn’t that jobs went overseas, it was that low-skilled jobs went overseas, and without expensive government programs to increase access to education and reduce the impact of social connections, then you have more social inequity. If you had an MBA from Harvard, then the 2000 decade was wonderful since globalization gave you tons of opportunities. If you are a high school drop-out, then you are pretty doomed by the economic system of the 2000 decade.

Personally, I think it was because of the Bush tax cuts. Incomes were rising across the board in the 1990’s, but just stopped cold after 2000.”

IMO, it was because the labor market became oversupplied in the USA. In the 1990′s we were losing some jobs to outsourcing, but new ones were created because of computers, cell phones, and the internet. When the nasdaq went down in 2000, more jobs went overseas and some others just went away. Add in permanent WTO entry for china, and even more jobs went overseas. Nothing really replaced those lost jobs (well the real estate and debt jobs did not really replace those lost overseas).

That is a good question. Here is an example. If it takes 2 workers at $25 per hour to make something in the USA ($50 total) and it takes 5 workers at $2 per hour in china ($10 total), who is more productive?

Personally, I think it was because of the Bush tax cuts. Incomes were rising across the board in the 1990′s, but just stopped cold after 2000.