Consumers and the brain drain: Product and process design and the gains from emigration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kuhn, Peter; McAusland, Carol
• 署名单位: University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2009.03.001
• 发表日期: 2009
• 页码: 287-291
• 关键词: Brain drain; International labor migration; product quality

摘要

We consider the welfare effects of skilled worker emigration in a context where skilled labor plays a role in product or process design. We show such emigration can benefit the residents left behind, even when consumers' tastes exhibit a form of home bias. This is because emigration improves the design of goods designed by skilled emigrants but consumed in the sending country. In contrast to existing models of beneficial brain drain, our results do not require agglomeration economies, education-related externalities, remittances, return migration, or an emigration lottery. Instead, they are driven purely by differences in market size that induce skilled emigrants to design better products or production processes abroad than at home. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.