Extending the case for a beneficial brain drain

Simone Bertoli () and Herbert Brücker ()
Additional contact information
Simone Bertoli: University of Florence and IAB (Institute for Employment Research)

No 2012008, Norface Discussion Paper Series from Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London

Abstract: The recent literature about the so-called beneficial brain drain assumes that destination countries are characterized not only by higher wages than the source country, but also by a higher or at least not lower relative return to education. However, it is a well known stylized fact that the returns to education are higher in rich than in poor countries. Against this background, we assess whether the main prediction of this literature, namely the possibility of a beneficial brain gain, still holds under the reverse assumption. We show that there is a still a strong case for a beneficial brain drain, even if the returns to education in the source country exceed those in the destination country. Immigration policies that are biased against unskilled workers are not necessary for a beneficial brain drain to occur once one considers that agents face heterogeneous migration costs.

Keywords: migration; brain drain; skill premium; heterogeneous agents; selective immigration policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J24 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_08_12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Extending the Case for a Beneficial Brain Drain (2011)
Working Paper: Extending the case for a beneficial brain drain (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nor:wpaper:2012008

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Norface Discussion Paper Series from Norface Research Programme on Migration, Department of Economics, University College London Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Norface Migration Administrator () and Thomas Cornelissen ().