Bielefeld University, Department of Business Administration and Economics
Doi
Abstract
Böhme MH, Glaser T. Migration Experience, Aspirations and the Brain Drain: Theory and Empirical Evidence. Working Papers in Economics and Management. Vol 14-2014. Bielefeld: Bielefeld University, Department of Business Administration and Economics; 2014.We develop a theoretical model of human skill formation and emigration.
We extend the existing brain drain models, by partly endogenizing the heterogeneity
of individuals, by introducing aspirations. Emigration of an individual
will result in a migration experience, which increases the migrant's aspirations.
This will induce her to invest more in the education of her children back home.
We find that this aspirations effect increases the average skill level in the society
for a given migration rate. We show that the optimal migration rate
that maximizes the post-migration skill-rate of the population is higher if we
allow for the aspirations effect of migration. We use panel data from Indonesia
to demonstrate that a migration experience has an aspirations increasing
effect and calibrate our model accordingly. Our results suggest that there are
potentially more countries than previously thought which could benefit from
migration
