Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/51770 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 5730
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
High-skilled emigration is an emotive issue that in popular discourse is often referred to as brain drain, conjuring images of extremely negative impacts on developing countries. Recent discussions of brain gain, diaspora effects, and other advantages of migration have been used to argue against this, but much of the discussion has been absent of evidence. This paper builds upon a new wave of empirical research to answer eight key questions underlying much of the brain drain debate: 1) What is brain drain? 2) Why should economists care about it? 3) Is brain drain increasing? 4) Is there a positive relationship between skilled and unskilled migration? 5) What makes brain drain more likely? 6) Does brain gain exist? 7) Do high-skilled workers remit, invest, and share knowledge back home? and 8) What do we know about the fiscal and production externalities of brain drain?
Subjects: 
brain drain
brain gain
high-skilled emigration
development
JEL: 
F22
O15
J61
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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