NEW YORK-In addition to the outsourcing of jobs, the United States is beginning to experience an exodus of its creative business and academic talent, according to an article in the bimonthly magazine of the global, not-for-profit research group The Conference Board.

In "America's Best and Brightest are Leaving," author Richard Florida, a Hirst Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and author of The Rise of the Creative Class, says Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland are among the newly favored hotspots for creative talent in business and other sectors. According to Florida, as a result of this creative exodus, high-end, high-margin creative industries that used to be the United States' province and a crucial source of prosperity have begun to move overseas.

"For the first time in modern memory, top scientists and intellectuals from elsewhere are choosing not to come to the U.S.," he says. "The altered flow of talent-aided by more stringent security measures-is already beginning to show signs of crimping the scientific process."

According to Florida, U.S. economists and legislators should be concerned that metropolises from other developed countries are transforming themselves into magnets for higher value-added industries through a variety of means, including government-subsidized laboratories and partnerships between top universities and industry.

For more on the current brain drain visit The Conference Board Web site at www.conference-board.org.