Brain Drain in the Age of Mass Migration: Does Relative Inequality Explain Migrant Selectivity?

Yvonne Stolz and Joerg Baten

No 3705, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Brain drain is a core economic policy problem for many developing countries today. Does relative inequality in source and destination countries influence the brain-drain phenomenon? We explore human capital selectivity during the period 1820-1909.We apply age heaping techniques to measure human capital selectivity of international migrants. In a sample of 52 source and five destination countries we find selective migration determined by relative anthropometric inequality in source and destination countries. Other inequality measures confirm this. The results remain robust in OLS and Arellano-Bond approaches. We confirm the Roy-Borjas model of migrant self-selection. Moreover, we find that countries like Germany and UK experienced a small positive effect, because the less educated emigrated in larger numbers.

Keywords: international migration; labor markets; human capital; economic history (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I21 J40 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

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Journal Article: Brain drain in the age of mass migration: Does relative inequality explain migrant selectivity? (2012)
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