Emigration and Brain Drain: Evidence from the Caribbean

Mishra Prachi ()
Additional contact information
Mishra Prachi: Research Department, International Monetary Fund

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2007, vol. 7, issue 1, 44

Abstract: This paper quantifies the magnitude and nature of migration flows from the Caribbean and estimates their costs and benefits. The Caribbean countries have lost 10-40 percent of their labor force due to emigration to OECD member countries. The migration rates are particularly striking for the high-skilled labor force. Many countries have lost more than 70 percent of their labor force with more than 12 years of completed schooling--among the highest emigration rates in the world. The region is also the world's largest recipient of remittances as a percent of GDP. Remittances constituted about 13 percent of the region's GDP in 2002. Simple welfare calculations (under very conservative assumptions of elasticities) suggest that the losses due to high-skill migration (ceteris paribus) outweigh the official remittances to the Caribbean region.

Keywords: Caribbean; emigration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1682.1547 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
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:bpj:bejeap:v:7:y:2007:i:1:n:24

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/bejeap/html

DOI: 10.2202/1935-1682.1547

Access Statistics for this article

The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy is currently edited by Hendrik Jürges and Sandra Ludwig

More articles in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().