Word: hira
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Giants like Intel and Microsoft are bellwethers for other technology firms, but the seeds of globalized R&D were planted decades earlier. "The old model of research was Bell Labs'," says Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Working on everything from basic science to prototypes of new products, centralized labs produced landmarks like the transistor, and every major corporation had such incubators. That changed over the past 20 years, as businesses started to shift their R&D money away from basic science in centralized labs (they would rely on universities for that...
...More recently, the digital revolution narrowed the focus of R&D to software. From cars to cell phones to toasters, "a large part of the value of a project becomes embedded in the software," Hira says. So countries like India, with strong capabilities in software development, have gained leverage in attracting the work. Joining the tech companies congregating in Bangalore is a diverse group of manufacturers developing software for their products. Philips, the Dutch consumer-electronics giant, develops and tests software for DVD players and flat-screen TVs. General Motors opened a research lab, its first outside the U.S. Others...
...HIRA: The economics profession seems to be very, very concerned about protectionism. I think that's clouded some of their arguments, understating the problems that are created from globalization. Unless companies start to face competition and problems from this, there's no sense of urgency from their point of view...
...HIRA: I think Professor Slaughter doesn't understand fully how the H1-B is being utilized. Many of the Indian IT firms--their whole business model is about bringing in inexpensive foreign labor so they can underbid their U.S. rivals. This discussion is an important one, but it's all about how a U.S. firm will benefit from globalization. There's no guarantee these firms will actually hire U.S. workers to serve those markets. There's a fundamental shift in the bargaining power between workers and firms...
...HIRA: I'm all for the idea of human-capital credit. But you're supposing there's all this opportunity and some kind of skills mismatch. There aren't good data coming out of firms saying there's a lot of job openings in the U.S., and we're looking for people, we just can't find them...