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Optimal education policy and human capital accumulation in the context of brain drain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2019

Slobodan Djajić ,
Frédéric Docquier  and
Michael S. Michael
Slobodan Djajić*
Affiliation:
Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland
Frédéric Docquier
Affiliation:
LISER, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research, Belval, Luxembourg FNRS and IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Michael S. Michael
Affiliation:
Departement of Economics, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper revisits the question of how brain drain affects the optimal education policy of a developing economy. Our framework of analysis highlights the complementarity between public spending on education and students' efforts to acquire human capital in response to career opportunities at home and abroad. Given this complementarity, we find that brain drain has conflicting effects on the optimal provision of public education. A positive response is called for when the international earning differential with destination countries is large, and when the emigration rate is relatively low. In contrast with the findings in the existing literature, our numerical experiments show that these required conditions are in fact present in a large number of developing countries; they are equivalent to those under which an increase in emigration induces a net brain gain. As a further contribution, we study the interaction between the optimal immigration policy of the host country and education policy of the source country in a game-theoretic framework.

Keywords

Education policyimmigration policymigration of skilled workersF22J24O15
Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Demographic Economics , Volume 85 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 271 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2019 

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Footnotes

This paper benefited from the helpful suggestions of three anonymous referees. It was initiated when the first author was visiting the Department of Economics of the University of Cyprus. Slobodan Djajić wishes to thank the Department for its hospitality and support. Frédéric Docquier acknowledges financial support from the EOS programme of the Flemish (FWO) and French-speaking (FRS-FNRS) communities of Belgium (convention 30784531 on “Winners and Losers from Globalization and Market Integration: Insights from Micro-Data”).

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