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- Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
- Sprache: Englisch
Diploma Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Economics - International Economic Relations, grade: 1.3, University of Applied Sciences Bingen (Lehrstuhl für Internationale Wirtschaftspolitik), language: English, abstract: The emigration of highly skilled people, the so-called brain drain (BD) has prompted a significant amount of literature, and suggestions about consequences of high skilled mobility for sending countries (SCs) are numerous but rather ambiguous. Historically, two major approaches can be distinguished. A negative view of the detrimental consequences for SCs due to the loss of human capital, and hence an increasing inequality among least developed countries (LDCs) and developed (DCs) (SCs and receiving countries (RCs)) characterised the discussion in the 1960s and 1970s. This view was intensified by the end of the 1980s, as the new growth theory stressed the importance of human capital as the main driver of economic growth. Accordingly, the loss of human capital would deprive SCs of a major prerequisite for growth and permanently hamper development. Lately, however, this pessimistic vision of accentuating the disadvantages for growth in SCs has been challenged by a more positive point of view. Expatriates are not seen as a loss anymore but instead as a resource which can be employed in favour of the SC. Rather pragmatically, this transnational view admits that, as long as incentives such as inequalities in many areas persist, highly skilled migrants cannot be hindered from moving. Therefore, newer theories focus on the advantages that SCs can draw from linking to their diaspora. Indeed, following this theory, SCs can seize numerous opportunities to manage international migration to offset its inevitable disadvantages, thus effectively turning the brain drain into a brain gain. It will be the aim of this paper to analyse whether the more recent view of international mobility of highly skilled workers can really countervail the concerns typical of the more traditional view. Will the LDCs be able to benefit from their expatriate HC or will migration enlarge disparities between SCs and RCs and consequently increase emigration even further? To address this question the following parts will give an overview on migration flows, present the underlying theories of the different approaches and assess existing empirical findings on the impact of the BD. Finally, policy implications will be outlined before concluding the paper.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005
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AbbreviationsASEAN Associations of Southeast Asian Nations
BD Brain Drain
BGN
CD
CL
DC
ES
EU
FDI
FPE
GDP
HC
HO
HS
HTA
ILO
IMF
IOM
IT
LDC
MIDA
MNC
MTO
NIC
NSF
ODA
OECD
PPP
R&D
RC
RQAN
SANSA
S&T
SC
TOT
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
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Tables and Figures
Table 1.1 World Population - Non-Migrants and Migrants Stocks, 1965-2050 (in millions) ... 5 Table 1.2 Migrant Stocks and Net Migration by Regions, 2000 ............................................... 6 Table 4.1 Cumulative Percentage Loss of Tertiary and Secondary Educated (CL) and Tertiary Educational Selectivity of Emigrant Stock (ES) by Source Region, 1990, in percent .... 28 Table 4.2 Cumulative percent loss of tertiary and secondary educated and tertiary educational selectivity of emigrant stock for countries exceeding their regional average, 1990, in
percent .............................................................................................................................. 29 Table 4.3 Estimated Extent of Brain Drain from Africa* - Percentage of Nationals with
University Education Living Abroad ............................................................................... 30 Table 4.4 Number of Tertiary Educated Emigrants in the OECD or USA, 1990 in thousands31 Table 5.1 Key indicators on world GDP, population and R&D .............................................. 33 Table 5.2 Top 10 Receiving LDCs of Migrants Remittances, 2001, (in US$ billions) ........... 39 Table 5.3 Remittances Received by LDCs by Region, 2002, (in US$ billions) ...................... 39
Figure 1 Critical mass dynamics……………………………………………………………...13 Figure 2 Equalising dynamics………………………………………………………………...13
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0 Introduction
The migration of people from one place to another has been a recurring process through out history. Periods of mass migration have characterised the period after the fall of the Roman Empire and had important socio-economic repercussions throughout the Middle Ages. However, the technological advancements in transport and communication of the last one and a half centuries brought about significant increases in opportunities to cross continents and a growing consciousness of global prospects, greatly affecting the size and patterns of migration. This is most obvious by the exodus of European emigrants to the Americas during the 19thcentury and early 20thcentury. Due to growing numbers of mostly poor migrants the dissolve of physical migration barriers was soon considered a threat to economic stability. Laying more importance on state territory and national interest, especially governments in receiving countries (RCs) have restricted migration through tight immigration policies, which play an important role up to the present day. Indeed, economic problems and growing security concerns connected to terrorism have brought debates on migration policy back to the top of the political agenda. Nevertheless, the transformation of industrialised countries into high technology economies created a labour demand for well-educated workers, which increased the inflow of highly skilled (HS) immigrants from all over the world. The migration pattern of an over-proportional number of HS migrants trying to benefit from better opportunities in more advanced economies has thus been intensified. Developed countries (DCs) have clearly profited from this inflowing human capital (HC). However, the consequences for the labour sending countries (SCs) have been less clear. The large income disparities between DCs and less developed countries (LDCs) cause people from poor countries to urge towards the richer countries - with education often serving as a valuable entrance ticket to prosperous labour markets. This phenomenon - known as the brain drain (BD) - will be the focus of this paper concentrating on the consequences and concerns of poor SCs.1
The BD has prompted a significant amount of literature, and suggestions about consequences of HS mobility for SCs are numerous but rather ambiguous. Historically, two major approaches to the issue can be distinguished. A negative view of the detrimental consequences for SCs due to the loss of HC, and hence an increasing inequality among LDCs and DCs (SCs and RCs) characterised the discussion in the 1960s and 1970s.2This view was intensified by the end of the 1980s, as the new growth theory stressed the importance of HC
1Though not treated here, a very good analysis of impacts of migration on the host countries (RCs) can be
found in Borjas (1999).
(see http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~GBorjas/publications_for_download.html)
2In the following discussion SC and LDC as well as RC and DC will be treated as synonyms.
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as the main driver of economic growth. Accordingly, the loss of HC would deprive SCs of a major prerequisite for growth and permanently hamper development. Lately, however, this pessimistic vision of accentuating the disadvantages for growth in SCs has been challenged by a more positive point of view. Expatriates are not seen as a loss anymore but instead as a resource which can be employed in favour of the SC. Rather pragmatically, this transnational view admits that, as long as incentives such as differences in quality of life, educational opportunities for children, job security, and the desire to interact with a broader group of similarly skilled colleagues persist, HS migrants cannot be hindered from moving. Therefore, newer theories focus on the advantages that SCs can draw from linking to their diaspora. Indeed, following this theory, SCs can seize numerous opportunities to manage international migration to offset its inevitable disadvantages, thus effectively turning the brain drain into abrain gain.
It will be the aim of this paper to analyse whether the morerecentview of international mobility of HS workers can really countervail the concerns typical of the moretraditionalview. Will the LDCs be able to benefit from their expatriate HC or will migration enlarge disparities between SCs and RCs and consequently increase emigration even further? In order to introduce the topic and provide a basis for answering this question, the following discussion will first give a broad overview of international labour flows. Then general theoretical approaches to international migration will be introduced establishing the basis for the assessment of theories on HS mobility in chapter three. In this part, major characteristics of HS migrants will be stressed and consequences in the light of the traditional and new theories will be presented. In the fourth chapter the real extent of the BD will be evaluated with regard to existing empirical data and subsequently, empirical evidence of the BD’s effects will be discussed. As will become apparent, the empirical evaluation is difficult as it often suffers from a great data lack since many countries have not yet introduced any effective data collection mechanisms regarding migrant flows. Nevertheless, the data suffices to outline general conclusions about the effects of the BD and to point the direction for future discussions. Before concluding the paper, chapter six presents possible policy responses to leverage migration to maximise the benefits to SCs.
