Bidding for brains: Intellectual property rights and the international migration of knowledge workers

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: McAusland, Carol; Kuhn, Peter
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; University of British Columbia; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.02.002
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 77-87
• 关键词: Intellectual property rights; Development; Brain drain; International labor migration

摘要

We introduce international mobility of knowledge workers into a model of Nash equilibrium IPR policy choice among countries. We show that governments have incentives to use IPRs in a bidding war for global talent, resulting in Nash equilibrium IPRs that can be too high, rather than too low, from a global welfare perspective. These incentives become stronger as developing countries grow in size and wealth, thus allowing them to prevent the 'poaching' of their 'brains' by larger, wealthier markets. (C) 2010 Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.