High Skilled Mobility Under Uncertainty

Jordan Bisset, Dirk Czarnitzki and Thorsten Doherr

No 700195, Working Papers of Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven from KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, Leuven

Abstract: Previous work suggests a general uncertainty surrounding the migration process acts as a barrier to outmigration. In this paper, we argue that this barrier is exacerbated when relative economic policy uncertainty is higher in the target country and mitigated when relatively higher in the origin country. We use a novel inventor career panel to observe inventor migration from 12 European countries between 1997 and 2012 and test the premise that a higher relative uncertainty in the origin country raises the probability of inventor outmigration. Our results suggest a 1 standard deviation increase in the relative uncertainty of the home country is associated with a near 20% increase in the probability of inventor outmigration. The relationship is highly non-linear, with relative uncertainty values in the top centile leading to an increase of over 70%. The observed effects can be amplified or dampened by inventor specific characteristics, as would be expected given the prior art.

Keywords: Outmigration; Uncertainty; Human Capital; Inventors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39
Date: 2022-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int and nep-ure
Note: paper number MSI_2207
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Published in FEB Research Report MSI_2207, pages 1-39

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Related works:
Working Paper: High skilled mobility under uncertainty (2023)
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