Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/198780 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 7420
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Does the emigration of skilled individuals necessarily result in losses for source countries due to the brain drain? Combining industry-level patenting and migration data from 32 European countries, we show that emigration in fact positively contributes to innovation in source countries. We use changes in the labour mobility legislation within Europe as exogenous variation to establish causality. By analysing patent citation data, we further provide evidence that these positive effects are driven by knowledge flows that are triggered by emigrants. While skilled migrants are not inventing in their home country anymore, they contribute to cross-border knowledge and technology diffusion and thus help less advanced countries to catch up to the technology frontier.
Subjects: 
migration
innovation
knowledge spillovers
patent citations
EU enlargement
JEL: 
F22
J61
O33
O31
O52
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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