Migration as an antidote to rent-seeking?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mariani, Fabio
• 署名单位: heSam Universite; Universite Pantheon-Sorbonne; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2007.02.001
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 609-630
• 关键词: Rent-seeking; Skilled migration

摘要

We develop a new mechanism through which skilled migration may influence economic performance in the sending country. If agents can choose between acting as rent-seekers and engaging in productive activities, and only productive skills are exportable, a positive probability of migration (to a more secure economy) reduces the relative expected returns from rent-seeking, thus decreasing the proportion of skilled workers who opt for parasitic activities. Such an improvement in the allocation of talent may prevail over the loss of skilled workers due to outmigration. However, we show that this result is not robust to the introduction of endogenous protection. If productive workers share their resources between accumulation of productive capital and investment in security, prospective migration may induce a weaker protection against rent-seeking, which in turn might depress average income in the source economy. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.