An amenity-based approach to excellent returning scientists' location choice in China

The rapid increase in the number of returning Chinese scientists in past years has fostered an uneven geography of academic capital in China. Yet, this noteworthy issue has scarcely been discussed in recent literature. This paper attempts to testify whether there is an effect of urban amenities on the location choice of the returning scientists listed by China's Youth Scholar Thousand Talent Plan (YSTTP). Applying a city-level conditional logit model of skilled migration, it is suggested that YSTTP scientists were substantially driven by urban amenities, such as the scientific environment, and public infrastructures and services for elite residence. In particular, considerable attention was paid to high-level academic institutions, public transports, healthcare, income, and R&D capability. In contrast, YSTTP scientists were less sensitive to natural amenities and cost of living. Meanwhile, there is evident heterogeneity in the significance of urban amenities among different social groups in terms of their gender, age, whether they choose to work in Alma mater, and where they return from. This study contributes to bridging the current literature of scientific mobility with the amenity-based approach, and ultimately provides a critical reference for the brain gain policy in China.