Extending the case for a beneficial brain drain

Simone Bertoli and Herbert Brücker ()

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: The recent literature about the so called 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 skill. As this assumption has a doubtful empirical validity, 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 still a case for a beneficial brain drain. 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)
Pages: 12 pag
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-mig
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Extending the case for a beneficial brain drain (2012)
Journal Article: Extending the Case for a Beneficial Brain Drain (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2008_14.rdf

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