Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program

This paper presents the first evidence on the efficacy of a major program designed to encourage the return migration of high-skilled individuals. The Malaysian Returning Expert Program targets high-skilled Malaysians abroad and provides them with t...

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Main Authors:	Del Carpio, Ximena V., Ozden, Caglar, Testaverde, Mauro, Wagner, Mathis
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English en_US
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2016
Subjects:	brain drain migration migration policy tax incentives brain circulation return migration skilled workers expert migration
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/881411478027078856/Global-migration-of-talent-and-tax-incentives-evidence-from-Malaysias-returning-expert-program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25675

id	okr-10986-25675
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-256752021-06-08T14:42:46Z Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program Del Carpio, Ximena V. Ozden, Caglar Testaverde, Mauro Wagner, Mathis brain drain migration migration policy tax incentives brain circulation return migration skilled workers expert migration This paper presents the first evidence on the efficacy of a major program designed to encourage the return migration of high-skilled individuals. The Malaysian Returning Expert Program targets high-skilled Malaysians abroad and provides them with tax incentives to return. At several eligibility thresholds, the probability of acceptance into the program increases discontinuously. Using administrative data on applicants, the analysis is able to identify the impact of acceptance to the Returning Expert Program on the probability of returning to Malaysia. The fuzzy regression discontinuity design estimates suggest that program approval increases the return probability by 40 percent for applicants with a preexisting job offer in Malaysia. There is no significant treatment effect for those who apply without a job offer. The estimated migration elasticity with respect to the net-of-tax rate, averaged across all applicants, is 1.2. Fiscal cost-benefit analysis of the Returning Expert Program finds a modest net fiscal effect of the program, between minus $6,900 and plus $4,200 per applicant, suggesting that the program roughly pays for itself. 2016-12-05T22:42:21Z 2016-12-05T22:42:21Z 2016-11 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/881411478027078856/Global-migration-of-talent-and-tax-incentives-evidence-from-Malaysias-returning-expert-program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25675 English en_US Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7875 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper East Asia and Pacific Malaysia
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English en_US
topic	brain drain migration migration policy tax incentives brain circulation return migration skilled workers expert migration
spellingShingle	brain drain migration migration policy tax incentives brain circulation return migration skilled workers expert migration Del Carpio, Ximena V. Ozden, Caglar Testaverde, Mauro Wagner, Mathis Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program
geographic_facet	East Asia and Pacific Malaysia
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7875
description	This paper presents the first evidence on the efficacy of a major program designed to encourage the return migration of high-skilled individuals. The Malaysian Returning Expert Program targets high-skilled Malaysians abroad and provides them with tax incentives to return. At several eligibility thresholds, the probability of acceptance into the program increases discontinuously. Using administrative data on applicants, the analysis is able to identify the impact of acceptance to the Returning Expert Program on the probability of returning to Malaysia. The fuzzy regression discontinuity design estimates suggest that program approval increases the return probability by 40 percent for applicants with a preexisting job offer in Malaysia. There is no significant treatment effect for those who apply without a job offer. The estimated migration elasticity with respect to the net-of-tax rate, averaged across all applicants, is 1.2. Fiscal cost-benefit analysis of the Returning Expert Program finds a modest net fiscal effect of the program, between minus $6,900 and plus $4,200 per applicant, suggesting that the program roughly pays for itself.
format	Working Paper
author	Del Carpio, Ximena V. Ozden, Caglar Testaverde, Mauro Wagner, Mathis
author_facet	Del Carpio, Ximena V. Ozden, Caglar Testaverde, Mauro Wagner, Mathis
author_sort	Del Carpio, Ximena V.
title	Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program
title_short	Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program
title_full	Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program
title_fullStr	Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program
title_full_unstemmed	Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program
title_sort	global migration of talent and tax incentives : evidence from malaysia's returning expert program
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2016
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/881411478027078856/Global-migration-of-talent-and-tax-incentives-evidence-from-Malaysias-returning-expert-program http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25675
_version_	1764459867448279040

Global Migration of Talent and Tax Incentives : Evidence from Malaysia's Returning Expert Program

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