Remittances and the Brain Drain

This trend is raising considerable concern among policymakers in developing countries, wary of having to bear the cost of educating and then losing their most entrepreneurial and talented workers. The possibility for educated migrants to move abroad should raise the returns to education and, in the...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Faini, Riccardo
Format: Journal Article
Published: World Bank 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4453
id okr-10986-4453
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-44532021-04-23T14:02:17Z Remittances and the Brain Drain Faini, Riccardo Brain Drain developing countries educated migrants host country immigration immigration policies Policy Research Remittances Skilled Migrants skilled workers This trend is raising considerable concern among policymakers in developing countries, wary of having to bear the cost of educating and then losing their most entrepreneurial and talented workers. The possibility for educated migrants to move abroad should raise the returns to education and, in the end, may even lead to an increase in the number of educated workers who stay at home (Bhagwati and Hamada 1974; Bhagwati 1976; Mountford 1997; Stark, Helmenstein, and Prskawetz 1997, 1998). The European Community Household Panel is a closed panel and therefore cannot easily be used to study return migration. The key finding (table 1, column 3) is that more educated immigrants from non- EU countries are less likely to drop out of the panel, even after controlling for age, gender, employment status, and length of stay in the host country. The Pattern of Attrition in the European Community Household Panel Sample (dependent variable: probability that respondent does not drop out of the panel) Variable Household size Age Highest education Intermediate education Gender Employment Spouse Visitsa Minutesb Immigrant Immigrant EU Immigrant non-EU Lengthc ,5 years Lengthc 6 15 years Lengthc 16 25 years Constant Country dummy variable Time*origin Time dummy variable Number of observations Number of observations censored a Natives 0.012* Assume that the household is composed of two groups, one very close to the migrant and the other less close. Faini 185 Detragiache (1998) and Docquier and Marfouk (2004) relate the total number of skilled migrants to the Barro and Lee (2001) data set on educational achievements to derive a measure of migration rates for skilled workers, here defined as migrants having completed tertiary education. When the fact that 64 of 188 observations are censored at zero (using the Tobit maximum likelihood estimation procedure) is taken into account, the results are basically 8. In response to suggestions by a referee, a dummy variable for small island countries (mS/P) was introduced both additively and multiplicatively to capture the possibility that remittances are measured less accurately for these countries, which have the largest brain drain, thereby mechanically leading to a negative relation between (mS/P) and remittances. The findings of this article need to be confirmed by further research, especially at the household level. 2012-03-30T07:12:35Z 2012-03-30T07:12:35Z 2007-05-30 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4453 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article Philippines Egypt, Arab Republic of Pakistan
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
topic Brain Drain
developing countries
educated migrants
host country
immigration
immigration policies
Policy Research
Remittances
Skilled Migrants
skilled workers
spellingShingle Brain Drain
developing countries
educated migrants
host country
immigration
immigration policies
Policy Research
Remittances
Skilled Migrants
skilled workers
Faini, Riccardo
Remittances and the Brain Drain
geographic_facet Philippines
Egypt, Arab Republic of
Pakistan
description This trend is raising considerable concern among policymakers in developing countries, wary of having to bear the cost of educating and then losing their most entrepreneurial and talented workers. The possibility for educated migrants to move abroad should raise the returns to education and, in the end, may even lead to an increase in the number of educated workers who stay at home (Bhagwati and Hamada 1974; Bhagwati 1976; Mountford 1997; Stark, Helmenstein, and Prskawetz 1997, 1998). The European Community Household Panel is a closed panel and therefore cannot easily be used to study return migration. The key finding (table 1, column 3) is that more educated immigrants from non- EU countries are less likely to drop out of the panel, even after controlling for age, gender, employment status, and length of stay in the host country. The Pattern of Attrition in the European Community Household Panel Sample (dependent variable: probability that respondent does not drop out of the panel) Variable Household size Age Highest education Intermediate education Gender Employment Spouse Visitsa Minutesb Immigrant Immigrant EU Immigrant non-EU Lengthc ,5 years Lengthc 6 15 years Lengthc 16 25 years Constant Country dummy variable Time*origin Time dummy variable Number of observations Number of observations censored a Natives 0.012* Assume that the household is composed of two groups, one very close to the migrant and the other less close. Faini 185 Detragiache (1998) and Docquier and Marfouk (2004) relate the total number of skilled migrants to the Barro and Lee (2001) data set on educational achievements to derive a measure of migration rates for skilled workers, here defined as migrants having completed tertiary education. When the fact that 64 of 188 observations are censored at zero (using the Tobit maximum likelihood estimation procedure) is taken into account, the results are basically 8. In response to suggestions by a referee, a dummy variable for small island countries (mS/P) was introduced both additively and multiplicatively to capture the possibility that remittances are measured less accurately for these countries, which have the largest brain drain, thereby mechanically leading to a negative relation between (mS/P) and remittances. The findings of this article need to be confirmed by further research, especially at the household level.
format Journal Article
author Faini, Riccardo
author_facet Faini, Riccardo
author_sort Faini, Riccardo
title Remittances and the Brain Drain
title_short Remittances and the Brain Drain
title_full Remittances and the Brain Drain
title_fullStr Remittances and the Brain Drain
title_full_unstemmed Remittances and the Brain Drain
title_sort remittances and the brain drain
publisher World Bank
publishDate 2012
url http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4453
_version_ 1764391433613082624