Intellectual Property Rights, Migration, and Diaspora

Alireza Naghavi and Chiara Strozzi ()

No 5864, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: In this paper we study theoretically and empirically the role of the interaction between skilled migration and intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection in determining innovation in developing countries (South). We show that although emigration from the South may directly result in the well-known concept of brain drain, it also causes a brain gain effect, the extent of which depends on the level of IPRs protection in the sending country. We argue this to come from a diaspora channel through which the knowledge acquired by emigrants abroad can flow back to the South and enhance the skills of the remaining workers there. By increasing the size of the innovation sector and the skill-intensity of emigration, IPRs protection makes it more likely for diaspora gains to dominate, thus facilitating a potential net brain gain. Our main theoretical insights are then tested empirically using a panel dataset of emerging and developing countries. The findings reveal a positive correlation between emigration and innovation in the presence of strong IPRs protection.

Keywords: technology transfer; migration; intellectual property rights; brain gain; diaspora (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J24 J61 O33 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2011-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - revised and updated version published as 'Intellectual Property Rights, Diasporas, and Domestic Innovation' in: Journal of International Economics, 2015, 96(1), 150–161

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp5864.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Intellectual Property Rights, Migration, and Diaspora (2011)
Working Paper: Intellectual Property Rights, Migration, and Diaspora (2011)
Working Paper: Intellectual Property Rights, Migration, and Diaspora (2011)
Working Paper: Intellectual Property Rights, Migration, and Diaspora (2011)
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:iza:izadps:dp5864

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().