Discussions of high-skilled mobility typically evoke migration patterns from poorer to wealthier countries, which ignore movements to and between developing countries.
... See More + This paper presents, for the first time, a global overview of human capital mobility through bilateral migration stocks by gender and education in 1990 and 2000, and calculation of nuanced brain drain indicators. Building on newly collated data, the paper uses a novel estimation procedure based on a pseudo-gravity model, then identifies key determinants of international migration, and subsequently uses estimated parameters to impute missing data. Non-OECD destinations account for one-third of skilled-migration, while OECD destinations are declining in relative importance.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS6863 MAY 01, 2014
This paper quantifies the effects of physician emigration on human development indicators in developing countries. First, the geographical distribution and evolution of physician brain drain is documented for the period 1991-2004.
... See More + Second, random and fixed effects models were employed to investigate the effects of physicians in the home countries and abroad on child mortality and vaccination rates. And third, models were estimated to investigate migration induced incentives and possible brain gain in the medical sector. The results showed positive effects of migration prospects on medical training though the magnitude was too small for generating a net brain gain. Also, infant and child mortality rates were negatively associated with the number of physicians per capita after the adult literacy rate exceeded sixty percent. The results for Diphteria, Pertussis andd Tetanus (DPT) and measles vaccinations underscored the importance of literacy rates and physicians per capita for higher vaccination uptake. Finally, from the standpoint of millennium development goals, reducing brain drain is likely to have only small effects on child mortality and vaccination rates.
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This paper reviews the existing literature on the impact of migrants networks on the patterns of international migration. It covers the theoretical channels at stake in the global effect of the networks.
... See More + It identifies the key issues, namely the impact on size, selection and concentration of the migration flows. The paper also reviews the empirical hurdles that the researchers face in assessing the importance of networks. The key issues concern the choice of micro vs a macro approach, the definition of a network, the access to suitable data and the adoption of econometric methods accounting for the main features of those data. Finally, the paper reports a set of estimation outcomes reflecting the main findings of the macro approach.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5721 JUN 01, 2011
Immigrants in Rome or Paris are more visible to the public eye than the Italian or French engineers in Silicon Valley, especially when it comes to the debate on the effects of immigration on the employment and wages of natives in high-income countries.
... See More + This paper argues that such public fears, especially in European countries are misplaced; instead, more concern should be directed towards emigration. Using a new dataset on migration flows by education levels for the period 1990-2000, the results show the following: First, immigration had zero to small positive long-run effect on the average wages of natives, ranging from zero in Italy to +1.7 percent in Australia. Second, emigration had a mild to significant negative long-run effect ranging from zero for the US to -0.8 percent in the UK. Third, over the period 1990-2000, immigration generally improved the income distribution of European countries while emigration worsened it by increasing the wage gap between the high and low skilled natives. These patterns hold true using a range of parameters for the simulations, accounting for the estimates of undocumented immigrants, and correcting for the quality of schooling and/or labor-market downgrading of skills. All results go counter to the popular beliefs about migration, but they are due to the higher skill intensity of both emigration and immigration relative to non-migrants.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5556 FEB 01, 2011
Migration is an important yet neglected determinant of institutions. This paper documents the channels through which emigration affects home country institutions and considers dynamic-panel regressions for a large sample of developing countries.
... See More + The authors find that emigration and human capital both increase democracy and economic freedom. This implies that unskilled (skilled) emigration has a positive (ambiguous) impact on institutional quality. Simulations show an impact of skilled emigration that is generally positive, significant for a few countries and for many countries once incentive effects of emigration on human capital formation are accounted for.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS5557 FEB 01, 2011
Migration flows are shaped by a complex combination of self-selection and out-selection mechanisms. In this paper, the authors analyze how existing diasporas (the stock of people born in a country and living in another one) affect the size and human-capital structure of current migration flows.
... See More + The analysis exploits a bilateral data set on international migration by educational attainment from 195 countries to 30 developed countries in 1990 and 2000. Based on simple micro-foundations and controlling for various determinants of migration, the analysis finds that diasporas increase migration flows, lower the average educational level and lead to higher concentration of low-skill migrants. Interestingly, diasporas explain the majority of the variability of migration flows and selection. This suggests that, without changing the generosity of family reunion programs, education-based selection rules are likely to have a moderate impact. The results are highly robust to the econometric techniques, accounting for the large proportion of zeros and endogeneity problems.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4984 JUL 01, 2009
This paper examines the relationship between international migration and source country fertility. The impact of international migration on source country fertility may have a number of causes, including a transfer of destination countries' fertility norms and an incentive to acquire more education.
... See More + It provides provide a rigorous test of the diffusion on of fertility norms using original and detailed data on migration. The results provide evidence of a significant transfer of fertility norms from migrants to their country of origin: a one percent decrease in the fertility norm to which migrants are exposed reduces home country fertility by about 0.3 percent for origin countries.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4925 MAY 01, 2009
Recent changes in information and communication technologies have contributed to a dramatic increase in the degree of integration and interdependency of countries, markets, and people.
... See More + Against this background, one aspect of particular concern for small states is the international movement of people. This paper focuses on this particularly important aspect of globalization, with emphasis on the movement of skilled people and its relationship with country size. In addition to overall skilled migration, it provides evidence that controls for migration age in order to distinguish between those educated in the home country and those educated abroad. The authors discuss the growth implications of the brain drain from small countries and policies that may help control it.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4827 JAN 01, 2009
Assuming a given educational policy, the recent brain drain literature reveals that skilled migration can boost the average level of schooling in developing countries.
... See More + This paper introduces educational subsidies determined by governments concerned by the number of skilled workers remaining in the country. The theoretical analysis shows that developing countries can benefit from skilled emigration when educational subsidies entail high .fiscal distortions. However when taxes are not too distortionary, it is desirable to impede emigration and subsidize education. The authors investigate the empirical relationship between educational subsidies and migration prospects, obtaining a negative relationship for 105 countries. Based on this result, the analysis revisits the country specific effects of skilled migration upon human capital. The findings show that the endogeneity of public subsidies reduces the number of winners and increases the magnitude of the losses.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4614 MAY 01, 2008
This paper updates and extends the Docquier-Marfouk data set on inter-national migration by educational attainment. The authors use new sources, homogenize definitions of what a migrant is, and compute gender-disaggregated indicators of the brain drain.
... See More + Emigration stocks and rates are provided by level of schooling and gender for 195 source countries in 1990 and 2000. The data set can be used to capture the recent trend in women's skilled migration and to analyze its causes and consequences for developing countries. The .findings show that women represent an increasing share of the OECD immigration stock and exhibit relatively higher rates of brain drain than men. The gender gap in skilled migration is strongly correlated with the gender gap in educational attainment at origin. Equating women's and men's access to education would probably reduce gender differences in the brain drain.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS4613 MAY 01, 2008
Docquier, Frederic; Lowell, B. Lindsay; Marfouk, AbdeslamDisclosed
Country-level longitudinal data at three-year intervals over 1990-2004 are used to analyze the factors affecting emigration of physicians from Sub-Saharan countries and the effects of this medical brain drain on life expectancy and number of deaths due to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
... See More + Data are compiled on emigrating African physicians from 16 receiving Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. A comprehensive longitudinal database is developed by merging the medical brain drain variables with recent data on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence rates, public health expenditures, physicians wages, and economic and demographic variables. A triangular system of equations is estimated in a random effects framework using five time observations for medical brain drain rates, life expectancy, and number of deaths due to AIDS, taking into accounts the interdependence of these variables. Lower wages and higher HIV prevalence rates are strongly associated with the brain drain of physicians from Sub- Saharan African to OECD countries. In countries in which the HIV prevalence rate exceeds 3 percent, a doubling of the medical brain drain rate is associated with a 20 percent increase in adult deaths from AIDS; medical brain drain does not appear to affect life expectancy. These findings underscore the need to improve economic conditions for physicians in order to retain physicians in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially as antiretroviral treatment becomes more widely available.
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Recent data on international migration of skilled workers define skilled migrants by education level without distinguishing whether they acquired their education in the home or the host country.
... See More + This article uses immigrants' age of entry as a proxy for where they acquired their education. Data on age of entry are available from a subset of receiving countries that together represent 77 percent of total skilled immigration to countries of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). Using these data and a simple gravity model to estimate the age-of-entry structure of the remaining 23 percent, alternative brain drain measures are proposed that exclude immigrants who arrived before ages 12, 18, and 22.
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An original data set on international migration by educational attainment for 1990 and 2000 is used to analyze the determinants of brain drain from developing countries.
... See More + The analysis starts with a simple decomposition of the brain drain in two multiplicative components, the degree of openness of sending countries (measured by the average emigration rate) and the schooling gap (measured by the education level of emigrants compared with natives). Regression models are used to identify the determinants of these components and explain cross-country differences in the migration of skilled workers. Unsurprisingly, the brain drain is strong in small countries that are close to major Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regions that share colonial links with OECD countries, and that send most of their migrants to countries with quality-selective immigration programs. Interestingly, the brain drain increases with political instability and the degree of fractionalization at origin and decreases with natives' human capital.
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This paper is concerned with the measurement of the medical brain drain, with a particular focus on the situation of small states. There are no official statistics on the emigration of healthcare staff.
... See More + The authors gathered information from many medical associations and Statistics Institutes in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries on immigration of doctors on an annual basis for the period 1991- 2004. Then combining these data, authors build a unique and original data set on the emigration of healthcare staff from developing to developed countries.
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This paper examines the relationship between the brain drain and country size, as well as the extent of small states' overall loss of human capital.
... See More + The authors find that small states are the main losers because they lose a larger proportion of their skilled labor force, and exhibit stronger reactions to standard push factors. The authors also observe that the correlation between human capital indicators and country size is close to zero. This suggests that small states are more successful in producing skilled natives and less successful in retaining them.
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The economic policy and debt department of the World Bank launched a research program on economic growth and integration of small states to the World economy, which includes a series of economic growth thematic, regional and case studies.
... See More + The objective of these studies is to improve our understanding of the sources of and impediments to economic growth of small states in the Africa, Caribbean, Europe, Middle East, Asia and Pacific regions. Small states are grouped by continent and/or region to analyze more deeply the characteristics of countries in each group that might not emerge in a more aggregate study. The regional studies examine economic growth at the country level and distill lessons for other countries with similar characteristics in the region and elsewhere. In most cases, the analysis will not discuss all small states in the region; however, the coverage will be comprehensive in studying small states' most important problems in each region. Recent changes in information and communication technologies (ICT) have contributed to a dramatic increase in the degree of integration and interdependency of countries, markets and people. Against this background, one aspect of particular concern for small states is the international movement of people. This report focuses on this particularly important aspect of globalization, with emphasis on the mobility of skilled people.
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This issue includes the following: migration, remittances, and the brain drain: a symposium in memory of Riccardo Faini - an introduction; by Jaime de Melo.
... See More + Remittances and the brain drain: do more skilled migrants remit more? By Riccardo Faini. Brain drain in developing countries; by Frederic Docquier, Olivier Lohest, and Abdeslam Marfouk. Are remittances insurance? Evidence from rainfall shocks in the Philippines; by Dean Yang, and HwaJung Choi. Measuring international skilled migration: a new database controlling for age of entry; by Michel Reine, Frederic Docquier, and Hillel Rapoport. The anarchy of numbers: aid, development, and cross-country empirics; by David Roodman. Incremental reform and distortions in China's product and factor markets; by Xiaobo Zhang, and Kong-Yam Tan. Child labor, school attendance, and intra household gender bias in Brazil; by Patrick M. Emerson, and Andre Portela Souza. Tracking poverty over time in the absence of comparable consumption data; by David Stifel, and Luc Christiaensen.
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Knowledge of the economic effects of migration, especially its impact on economic development, is rather limited. In order to expand knowledge on migration, and identify policies and reforms that would lead to superior development outcomes, this volume presents the results of a first set of studies carried out on the subject.
... See More + Current demographic trends in both developed and developing countries are pointing toward significant, potential economic gains from migration. The labor forces in many developed countries are expected to peak around 2010, and decline by around 5 percent in the following two decades, accompanied by a rapid increase in dependency ratios. Conversely, the labor forces in many developing countries are expanding rapidly, resulting in declines in dependency ratios. This imbalance is likely to create strong demand for workers in developed countries' labor markets, especially for numerous service sectors that can only be supplied locally. There are large north-south wage gaps, however, especially for unskilled and semiskilled labor. Part 1 of this book, Migration and Remittances, examines the determinants of migration, and the impact of migration and remittances on various development indicators, and measures of welfare. Among these are poverty and inequality; investments in education, health, housing and other productive activities; entrepreneurship; and child labor and education. It focuses on different source countries, use data collected via different methodologies, and employ different econometric tools. Their results, however, are surprisingly consistent. Part 2, Brain Drain, Brain Gain, Brain Waste, focuses on issues related to the migration of skilled workers, that is, the brain drain. It presents the most extensive database on bilateral skilled migration to date, and also examines a number of issues associated with the brain drain, that have not been emphasized in the literature so far, uncovers a number of interesting and unexpected patterns, and, provides answers to some of the debates. This volume deals essentially with economically motivated south-north migration, whose principal cause is, in most cases, the difference in (the present value of) expected real wages, adjusted for migration costs.
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Publication 33988 JAN 01, 2006
Schiff, Maurice [editor]; Ozden, Caglar [editor]; Mora, Jorge; Taylor, J. Edward; Adams, Richar H. jr.,; Yang, Dean; Martinez, Claudia A.; McKenzie, David J.; Docquier, Frederic; Marfouk, Abdeslam; Chellaraj, Gnanaraj; Maskus, Keith E.; Mattoo, AadityaDisclosed
Until recently, there has been no systematic empirical assessment of the economic impact of the brain drain. Despite many case studies and anecdotal evidence, the main reason for this seems to be the lack of harmonized international data on migration by country of origin and education level.
... See More + An exception is the paper by Carrington and Detragiache (1998), which provided skilled migration rates for 61 developing countries in 1990. This study relies on a set of tentative assumptions. For example, they transpose the skill structure of U.S. immigrants on the OECD total immigration stock. In this paper, the authors provide new estimates of skilled workers' emigration rates for about 190 countries in 2000 and 170 countries in 1990, in both developing and industrial countries. Using various statistical sources, they revisit Carrington and Detragiache's measures by incorporating information on immigrants' educational attainment and country of origin from almost all OECD countries. The set of receiving countries is restricted to OECD nations. The authors' database covers 92.7 percent of the OECD immigration stock. In absolute terms, the authors show that the largest numbers of highly educated migrants are from Europe, Southern and Eastern Asia, and, to a lesser extent, from Central America. Nevertheless, as a proportion of the potential educated labor force, the highest brain drain rates are observed in the Caribbean, Central America, and Western and Eastern Africa. Repeating the exercise for 1990 and 2000 allows the authors to evaluate the changes in brain drain intensity. Western Africa, Eastern Africa, and Central America experienced a remarkable increase in the brain drain during the past decade. The database delivers information that is rich enough to assess the changes in the international distribution of migration rates, to test for the (push and pull) determinants per skill group, to evaluate the growth effects of migration on source and destination countries, and to estimate the relationships between migration, trade, foreign research and development, and remittances.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS3381 AUG 01, 2004
The authors focus on the consequences of skilled migration for developing countries. They first present new evidence on the magnitude of migration of skilled workers at the international level and then discuss its direct and indirect effects on human capital formation in developing countries in a unified stylized model.
... See More + Finally they turn to policy implications, with emphasis on migration and education policy in a context of globalized labor markets.
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Policy Research Working Paper WPS3382 AUG 01, 2004
