We seem to have an answer to why people suspect India, as as country, is so much smarter than it is.
Indian immigration seems to be the most cognitively selective immigration known in the sense that the delta between the country and the immigrants is the largest we know of.
I've posted about this study before (), but it re-entered my feed today via @nim_chimpsky_ posting about a new article from @Scientific_Bird featuring this data.
As noted by @jonatanpallesen last time I posted this, we can also see that Indian immigration is extraordinarily selective by way of looking at immigrant educational attainment, where India is the most elite-biased among those coming to the U.S.:
I suspect this is due to the British Commonwealth.
Britain's Chinese being less capable than America's Chinese is also explicable via the Commonwealth. The biggest wave of Chinese immigration to Britain happened in the 1950s-60s from HK and it was filled with male farm workers.
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
We have some neat stories in selectiveness, and there are plenty more
For example: the story of how the Mirpuri escaping a flood resettled en masse in Britain, brought high rates of endogamy from their particularly cousin-loving area -> explaining Brit. Pakistani weirdness today
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
As to why India's immigration is so relatively selective to the U.S.? I think this models answers that question well.
Slots are very limited (actually quite a big problem), and India is very large, so America gets the creamy layer (not that one).
@Scientific_Bird Also, we do have American quasi-experimental support for Lazear's model.
Some of the evidence comes from setting up bigger barriers with everyone but Canada. That made the composition of immigrants who got through more elite:
@Scientific_Bird And, we have additional evidence from India itself.
The higher the score on the Joint Entrance Exam that gets people into the Indian Institutes of Technology, the higher the odds of leaving India.
Not all of these people went to America, but 1/2
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
@Scientific_Bird A whopping 65% did.
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
The nature of immigration has changed and I'm told it's become much less elite in more recent cohorts, as there are nowadays more opportunities to excel within India, so maybe this doesn't hold as strongly these days.