Talent is scarce. Yet many countries spurn it

livemint.com:

Zeke Hernandez was worried. His 12-year-old son, Lucas, had not grown for two years. The family paediatrician told him to eat more, but it didn’t work.

Eventually, after a battery of tests, another doctor diagnosed Lucas with celiac disease, which was damaging his small intestine. The solution was to stop eating wheat. Mr Hernandez, who teaches at Wharton business school, tells this story to illustrate a point about immigration.

His (now healthy) son owes a debt to Alessio Fasano, an Italian-born doctor who helped improve understanding of gluten intolerance in America. Dr Fasano migrated from a country where celiac disease is common (Italy) to one where it was thought to be rare (America). Having grown up surrounded by sufferers, he wondered if the condition was really so uncommon in his new homeland, or simply underdiagnosed.

In a landmark study in 2003, he proved that celiac disease afflicts Americans just as much as Europeans. Diagnosis and treatment have now markedly improved. Clever immigrants like Dr Fasano bring huge benefits to the countries where they relocate.

Yet many governments make it hard for them to settle or turn them away outright. Even governments receptive to skilled immigrants often bungle the job of attracting them. Some, however, do it ruthlessly and reap big rewards.

When brainy immigrants arrive in a country, they do not just bring their brains. They bring fresh ways of looking at things. They know things that locals don’t, and can tap foreign-language sources that locals can’t.

So in a variety of fields, from business to science, their skills are likely to be unusually beneficial. “Immigrants are different in useful ways," argues Mr Hernandez in “The Truth about Immigration", a new book. A study