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Brain Drain

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The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Abstract

The term ‘brain drain’ designates the international transfer of human resources and mainly applies to the migration of relatively highly educated individuals from developing to developed countries. While the brain drain has long been viewed as detrimental to poor countries’ growth potential, recent economic research emphasizes a number of positive feedback effects arising from skilled migrants’ participation in business networks, and suggests that under certain conditions the prospect of migration can positively affect human capital accumulation in the source countries.

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Docquier, F., Rapoport, H. (2018). Brain Drain. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1986

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