Comments on: The Brain Gain

By: Brain drains, brain gains and economists « Beyond the Borders

Brain drains, brain gains and economists « Beyond the Borders — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:54:46 +0000

[...] or stimulated by a piece on migration on Owen Barder’s blog, referencing a piece of the AidWatchers blog, I’ve stuck my oar in. I’ve been wanting [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:25:27 +0000

There are two issues here:
Firstly, there is the matter of human freedom and the right to seek out one’s best opportunities.
Secondly and more important:
Allowing emigration from developing to developed countries increases the potential value of human capital for the developing country IF that country chooses to improve its social, economic and political prospects. There is always a backwash of former emigrants who return to their countries of origin when such positive changes occur and it is these people who, with their experience of working in developed countries, who bring their institutional experience to bear in potentially making that positive change permanent.
Consider that the Marshall Plan worked in Europe mainly because of the stock of human capital that knew how to operate a developed economy and its necessary institutions. One reason massive influxes of aid to developing countries has not seen the same positive results as occurred in Europe is that the stock of human capital is so much less.

By: Alan Hudson

Alan Hudson — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:54:22 +0000

Any attempt to make a generalisation about whether outward migration from developing countries is a net benefit or a net loss, lets say for those countries’ economies (and the unit of analysis matters), is unwise.

Just as with trade liberalisation, for some countries it’s a good thing, for some it’s not. It depends on the context. The context of the originating countries (do they have an excess of human capital, does the export of human capital actually increase the supply – that might depend on educational facilities for instance) and the context of the destination country (what wages do migrants get paid and what rights do they have etc. etc.).

(Yeah, in the long run – and in economic models – liberalisation might be good for everyone, but in the long run we’re dead, and politics as always complicates the neatness of the economic analysis)

So, while the efforts of Michael Clemens and others to challenge the received wisdom on the “inevitable” problems of brain drain and the empirical analysis is welcome, it would be a mistake to replace that received wisdom by flipping to a simplistic generalisation on the other side.

And, not all migration is good for the family left behind or the individual who goes. Just talk – as I have been, and I’m sure Owen has – to some of the Ethiopian families who have family members who have gone to work as domestic servants in the middle east. “Worse than slavery” is how an Ethiopian friend described it to me yesterday.

I don’t have the expertise of people like David Ellerman on this, but I did draft a report on Migration and Development for the UK Parliament some years ago which looked at some of the contextual factors that will shape whether a migration flow is good or bad for poverty reduction in an effort to see how policy makers might influence some of those factors to make migration work better for poverty reduction http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmintdev/79/79.pdf

Them actual empirics perhaps may not lend themselves to simple generalisations.

By: KS

KS — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:24:07 +0000

but of course you’d expect the effects, both positive and negative, to vary by sector. Without seeing the empirics it does not surprise me that people find the costs of outward migration of skilled professionals in ESSENTIAL SERVICES (e.g. healthcare) may outweigh the benefits, even if the aggregate effects across the board indicate benefits>costs. Presumably this is considered in the studies cited, but if so it would be worth including in the blog’s summary/endorsement.

Ken – Indeed. One of Michael Clemens’s most striking findings is that the opportunities for going abroad – e.g. as a Doctor – attract more people into a profession. So far from losing skilled professionals, the exporting country actually sees an increase in supply. Them’s actual empirics.

By: Roving Bandit

Roving Bandit — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:12:14 +0000

Amen. Bit of leadership from Oxfam maybe?