Does corruption promote emigration? An empirical examination

Arusha Cooray and Friedrich Schneider ()

Journal of Population Economics, 2016, vol. 29, issue 1, No 11, 293-310

Abstract: Abstract This paper investigates the effects of corruption on the emigration rate of low-, medium- and high-skilled individuals at the country level. Fixed-effects, system generalized method of moments (GMM) and instrumental variable estimations are used to establish a causal relationship between emigration and corruption. The empirical results indicate that as corruption increases, the emigration rate of high-skilled migrants also increases. The emigration rate of individuals with low and medium levels of educational attainment, however, increases at low levels of corruption and then decreases beyond a threshold of 3.4–4.0, where corruption is measured on a scale of 0 (not corrupt) to 10 (totally corrupt). Splitting the sample by income inequality suggests that increased inequality reduces the ability for medium- and low-skilled migrants to emigrate. Therefore, government action should focus on controlling corruption in order to prevent a brain drain.

Keywords: Corruption; Emigration; Educational attainment; 017; 05; D78; H2; H11; H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

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Journal Article: Does corruption promote emigration? An empirical examination (2016)
Working Paper: Does Corruption Promote Emigration? An Empirical Examination (2014)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-015-0563-y

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