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Indexación Scopus Scholars had been documenting the Brain Drain phenomenon producing scientific literature for more than 50 years. After three decades of slow but steady progress, literature about this concept has accelerated its progress and growth path, in line with the 9th sustainable development goal “Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation” Thus, the present article aims to define the current theoretical trends about the analysis of advanced intellectual human capital’s international migratory phenomenon. This study uses a scientometric methodology on a corpus of 1212 articles indexed to the JCR-WoS from Social Sciences. The period cov-ered in the study is from 1965 to 2020. The paper looks to understand how researchers studied the brain drain concept over the last 55 years in various disciplines. The report covers 99 categories from the Journal Citation Report (JCR) index. Results show that there is a scientific research critical mass that is studying the brain drain phenomenon. The analysis shows thematic trends at the sources, discourses, and consolidates classic works and some novel authors. Those new scholars and theoretical trends lead to refocused analysis beyond countries with a high development level. Such movement constitutes a new challenge in this line of research toward studying the effects of the brain drain in the peripheral areas of knowledge production. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3195

Does emigration really drain human capital accumulation in origin countries? This paper explores a unique household survey purposely designed and conducted to answer this specific question for the case of Cape Verde - the African country with the largest fraction of tertiary educated population living abroad, despite also having a fast-growing stock of human capital. Unlike previous literature, our tailored survey allows us to adjust existing inflated brain drain numbers for educational upgrading of emigrants after migration. We do so by combining our survey data on current, return and non-migrants with information from censuses of the destination countries. Our micro data also enables us to propose a novel, explicit test of brain gain arguments according to which the possibility of own future emigration positively impacts educational attainment in the origin country. Crucially, the innovative empirical strategy we propose hinges on the ideal characteristics of our survey, namely on full histories of migrants and on a new set of exclusion restrictions to control for unobserved heterogeneity of emigrants. Our results point to a very substantial impact of the brain gain” channel on the educational attainment of those left behind. Alternative channels (namely remittances, family disruption, and general equilibrium effects at the local level) are also considered, but these do not seem to play an important role. Overall, we find that there may be substantial human capital gains from allowing free migration and encouraging return migration.

The level of education grows steadily. Between 1980 and 2014, the percentage of male regular full-time workers in West Germany with a degree from a university or university of applied science rose from six to twenty percent. However, human capital is not equally distributed in Germany. On the one hand, there are regions where over 30 percent of the workforce went to university or university of applied science. On the other hand, there are regions in which less than five percent of the workforce studied at a university. Scholars argue that human capital raises the productivity of workers and societies. Analogously to investments in physical capital, investments in human capital increase production capabilities and efficiency. Economists, therefore, believe that human capital is crucial for economic development and explain income differences between countries by differences in their human capital endowments. The literature also postulates that individuals themselves benefit from investments in their human capital through higher earnings. Additionally, human capital might create positive spillover effects and raise the productivity of peers. This thesis contributes to two research areas on human capital in labor economics. First, I add to the literature on human capital externalities, which investigates spillover effects from individual human capital on peers. In particular, I aim to add new perspectives on the dynamics and the spatial scope of human capital externalities to the existing literature. Second, I contribute to the literature on the labor market consequences of globalization. Here, I highlight the importance of firm-internal restructuring of the workforce as an understudied adjustment channel to foreign direct investment. While the former research area focuses on the external effects of human capital on workers, the latter addresses the development of human capital of workers after an exogenous shock. So far, the literature on human capital externalities focuses on spillover effects from the stock of high-skilled workers within predefined geographical boundaries. This thesis aims to add two novel perspectives to the literature. In the first chapter, I analyze external effects of intra-country migration flows of high-skilled workers. Specifically, I decompose the regional stock of high-skilled workers into immigration and emigration of high-skilled workers, as well as labor market entries and exits of high-skilled workers. The decomposition contributes to the understanding of knowledge spillovers and enables me to assess how knowledge spillovers accrue over time. In the second chapter, I investigate the spatial decay of knowledge spillovers. For the first time, I apply functional data analysis to geocoded register data to estimate a functional representation of knowledge spillovers that depends on distance. This approach allows me to determine the spatial scope of knowledge spillovers and to assess how fast spillovers attenuate with distance. Furthermore, both chapters use a novel estimation procedure that potentially allows disentangling human capital externalities from labor market demand and supply effects. Another focus of the thesis lays on labor market effects of globalization. Globalization changes the labor demand of firms. The empirical literature on labor market consequences of globalization focuses on effects on earnings and displacements. Overall, results suggest heterogeneous effects on different groups of workers. Although earnings and displacements are important channels to adjust the labor force, the literature has overlooked that globalization might also incentivize firms to restructure their workforce internally. For several reasons, firms might benefit from restructuring their workforce internally instead of hiring and firing workers. For instance, incumbent workers have firm-specific human capital and thus might be more valuable than outsiders. Furthermore, asymmetric information about worker skills is less problematic when hiring internally. The third chapter of the thesis therefore studies how foreign direct investment influences internal restructuring. In particular, I assess the impact of foreign direct investment on internal up- and downgrades of workers to more or less complex jobs., Das Bildungsniveau der Beschäftigten in Deutschland steigt kontinuierlich an. Zwischen 1980 und 2014 wuchs der Anteil der männlichen Vollzeitbeschäftigten mit einem Universitäts- oder FH-Abschluss in Westdeutschland von sechs auf 20 Prozent. Allerdings ist dieses Humankapital in Deutschland ungleich verteilt. Einerseits gibt es Städte, in denen über 30 Prozent der Beschäftigten studiert haben. Andererseits gibt es Regionen, in denen weniger als fünf Prozent der Beschäftigten einen Universitäts- oder FH-Abschluss haben. Wissenschaftler argumentieren, dass Humankapital die Produktivität von Beschäftigten und Gesellschaften steigert. Analog zu Investitionen in Sachkapital erhöhen Investitionen in Humankapital die Fähigkeiten und die Effizienz von Personen. Die Forschung geht daher davon aus, dass Humankapital entscheidend für die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung ist und führt Einkommensunterschiede zwischen Nationen auf Unterschiede in deren Humankapital zurück. Durch höhere Löhne profitieren auch die Individuen selbst von Investitionen in ihr Humankapital. Zusätzlich erzeugt Humankapital positive externe Effekte, welche die Produktivität von sozialen Kontakten steigert. Diese Dissertation trägt zum Thema Humankapital innerhalb von zwei Forschungsfeldern bei. Erstens ergänzt sie die Literatur zu Humankapitalexternalitäten, welche sich mit externen Effekten von individuellem Humankapital auf andere Individuen beschäftigt. Hier werden Humankapitalexternalitäten erstmalig aus einer dynamischen Perspektive betrachtet. Zusätzlich untersucht die Dissertation die geografische Reichweite von Humankapitalexternalitäten. Der zweite thematische Schwerpunkt der Arbeit trägt zur Forschung über Arbeitsmarkteffekte der Globalisierung bei. Hier wird gezeigt, dass Firmen interne Umstrukturierungen durchführen nachdem sie ausländischen Direktinvestitionen tätigen. Während der erste Schwerpunkt der Dissertation externe Produktivitätseffekte von Humankapital untersucht, beleuchtet der zweite Schwerpunkt die Entwicklung des Humankapitals von Beschäftigten nach einem exogenen Ereignis. Die Literatur zu Humankapitalexternalitäten beschäftigt sich fast ausschließlich mit statischen externen Effekten von Humankapital innerhalb vordefinierter geografischer Einheiten. Mit dieser Dissertation wird die Literatur um zwei Perspektiven erweitern. Das erste Kapitel untersucht externe Effekte durch intranationale Migration von Hochqualifizierten. Hierfür wird der regionale Bestand an Humankapital in Zu- und Abwanderung, sowie Arbeitsmarkteintritte und Arbeitsmarktaustritte zerlegt. Diese Zerlegung erlaubt es, die zugrundeliegenden Mechanismen von Humankapitalexternalitäten genauer zu beleuchten und zu untersuchen, wie sich externe Effekte im Zeitverlauf entwickeln. Das zweite Kapitel analysiert die geografische Reichweite von Humankapitalexternalitäten. Erstmalig in der Forschung werden hierfür funktionale Datenanalyse und exakt geokodierte Sozialversicherungsdaten verwendet, welche es erlauben, einen funktionellen Zusammenhang von Humankapitalexternalitäten und räumlicher Distanz herzustellen. Dieser Ansatz ermöglicht es, die Reichweite und die räumliche Abnahme von Humankapitalexternalitäten zu bestimmen. Beide Kapitel verwenden neue Schätzmethoden, welche es erlauben, Humankapitalexternalitäten von Marktmechanismen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zu trennen. Der zweite Schwerpunkt der Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf den Arbeitsmarkt. Die Globalisierung führt zu einer veränderten Arbeitsnachfrage von Firmen. Die empirische Literatur hierzu beschäftigt sich hauptsächlich mit Effekten auf Löhne und Entlassungen und deutet auf heterogene Auswirkungen auf verschiedene Gruppen hin. Neben Lohnanpassungen und Entlassungen haben Firmen aber auch Anreize, sich intern umzustrukturieren. Statt vorhandene Beschäftigte zu entlassen und neue Arbeitskräfte einzustellen, kann es für Firmen Sinnvoll sein, interne Personalanpassungen durchzuführen. So verfügen interne Beschäftigte im Vergleich zu Externen über firmenspezifisches Humankapital. Auch Informationsasymmetrien bezüglich der Arbeitsproduktivität sind bei vorhandenen Beschäftigten geringer als bei Externen. Das dritte Kapitel dieser Dissertation beschäftigt sich daher mit der Frage, wie ausländische Direktinvestitionen firmeninterne Umstrukturierungen beeinflussen. Im Speziellen wird der Einfluss von ausländischen Direktinvestitionen auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass Beschäftigte beruflich auf- oder absteigen und dadurch mehr oder weniger komplexe Tätigkeiten ausführen untersucht.

To evaluate gains in human capital accumulation from reduction in remittance prices, this study constructs a general equilibrium model in which the choices to invest in human capital and to migrate are endogenous. The model is calibrated for a group of eight African economies which offer student loans, and the effect on human capital accumulation of decreasing the remittance price to the level recommended by the United Nations (3%) is numerically derived. It is found that reduction in remittance prices alters the decisions of households, leading in the aggregate to a decrease in interest rates, a curbing of the desire to migrate, and an increase human capital. Hence, the study offers the policy prescription that governments, both in nations where remittances originate and in those to which funds are sent, must continue to lower remittance prices, by, for example, improving access to mobile banking, especially since such policies are relatively immune to economic shocks.

Theory suggests that groups historically subject to discrimination, such as Jews, could exhibit traditionally high investment in education because discrimination spurred exit facilitated by human capital. Theory moreover suggests that if exit is uncertain, it could induce investment in skill that more-than-offsets the mechanical reduction in skill stocks at the origin. Tests of such theories are difficult and few. We examine a unique natural quasiexperiment in the Republic of Fiji, in which a sharp increase in discrimination induced mass exit by one ethnic group and mass skill investment by the same group. We show that the induced investment more than offset the loss from exit, producing a net increase in skill stocks. We argue with theory and a range of nonexperimental falsification tests that exit by skilled workers was a necessary causal mechanism of the offsetting skill investment.

The Slovak Republic is experiencing a growing brain drain of elite secondary school students. Slovak human capital flows chiefly to Czech Higher Education Institutes (HEIs). The aim of this paper is to analyse who these Slovak students are to create a complete profile of Slovak students at Czech HEIs. We used a unique dataset based on the surveys EUROSTUDENT V and DOKTORANDI 2014 to explore differences between Czech and Slovak students, their financial situation and the functionality of the intergenerational transmission mechanism. We have found that Slovak students at Czech HEIs come from highly educated families and from the middle and higher class families significantly more often than Czech students at Czech HEIs or Slovak students at Slovak HEIs. Approximately 80% of them came from grammar schools. Slovak students also often have better language skills. We have discovered that Slovak students at Czech HEIs enjoy certain social benefits, slightly more often they have higher monthly income compared to Czech students, and they work slightly less often during their studies. Finally, according to our findings, Slovak doctoral students are often reluctant to return back to the Slovak Republic or to stay in the Czech Republic.

We analyse a competitive research-oriented public programme established in Spain, the Ramon y Cajal Programme, intended to offer contracts in public research centres to high-quality researchers. We study the effects of the programme on the ex post scientific productivity of its recipients, relative to non-granted applicants with comparable curricula at the time of application. The full sample results demonstrate that the programme has a positive and significant effect on the scientific productivity of the recipients, as measured both by the amount of published contribution and by the impact of their publications. Consequently, receiving a contract affects the quantity, but also increases the quality, of the contract recipients' publications. Research funding from the Ministry of Finance and Competitiveness, Grant Nos. ECO2015-65204-P (Alonso-Borrego), ECO2014- 57442P (Romero-Medina), ECO2015-70331-C2-1- R (Sánchez- Mangas), MDM20140431 (Alonso-Borrego and Romero- Medina) and Comunidad de Madrid, Grant No. MadEco-CM S2015/HUM-3444 (all authors) is acknowledged

We analyse the effect of massive migration particularly from the Western Balkans and the Central and Eastern European countries on human capital and growth. In our analysis, we use a system of three equations to estimate simultaneously the effect of migration on human capital and on growth. An important driver of migration is chain migration, as well as the unemployment and income differentials between developing and developed countries. Overall, our findings suggest that migration of highly skilled from the Western Balkan and Central Eastern European countries has been beneficial to economic growth and income convergence of these countries. Our analysis supports the positive impact of low-skilled migration on the composition of human capital in the source countries.

Return migration can have multiple benefits. It allows migrants who have accumulated savings abroad to ease credit constraints at home and set up a business. Also, emigrants from low- and middle-income countries who have invested in their human capital may earn higher wages when they return. However, whether the home country benefits from return migrants depends on the migrant's success in accumulating savings and human capital and on the home country's ability to make use of returnees' skills and investment. To benefit from returnees, home countries need policies that encourage returnees' investment and labor market reintegration.

We analyze a competitive research-oriented public program established in Spain, the Ramon yCajal Program, intended to offer contracts in public research centers to high-quality researchers.We study the effects of the Program on the ex-post scientific productivity of its recipients, relativeto unsuccessful applicants with comparable curricula at the time of application. The full sampleresults demonstrate that the Program has a positive and significant effect on the scientific impactof the recipients, as measured by the average and the maximum impact factors, but the effect onthe number of published papers is not significant. Consequently, receiving a contract does notsignificantly affect the quantity, but increases the quality, of the contract recipients' publications.This result is primarily driven by the particular relevance of experimental sciences in the Program. Research funding from the Ministry of Finance and Competitiveness, Grant Nos. ECO2012-31358 (Alonso-Borrego), ECO2011-25330 (Romero-Medina) and ECO2012-32854 (Sánchez-Mangas) is acknowledged

We study the e§ect of a Program, aimed at Önancing high qual- ity researchers to integrate them into the Spanish scientiÖc system, on the relative ex post performance of the researchers awarded. We assess the e§ect of the contract status on the scientiÖc productivity of applicants, in the four-year period after application. Both the con- ditional regression and the matching results show that the contract status has no e§ect on the average number of published contributions, but it exhibits, for several areas, a positive e§ect on the scientiÖc qual- ity of contributions (as measured by its impact). This result points out the success of the Program in increasing the scientiÖc impact of the Spanish system.

In this paper, we analyse how increasing student migration from a less developed to a developed country alters education policy in the developed country, and how it affects human capital and welfare in the two countries. We argue that a higher permanent migration probability, i.e., a higher probability that international students continue to stay in their host country after graduation, incentivises the host country to improve its education quality. A higher education quality in turn raises the human capital of all students, including returning students. As long as the permanent migration probability is not too large, this positive quality effect increases human capital and welfare in both the less developed country (LDC) and the developed host country. Thus, a brain gain to the LDC occurs. A decline in the taxes on labour income in the two countries can reinforce this brain gain, although the developed country then raises the tuition fees.

We analyze the design of a unique Spanish public program aimed at recruiting high quality researchers in public research centers: the Ramón y Cajal Program. We claim that, after a number of calls, the program design changed in response to agents' needs. Exploiting data on applications and candidates we find that the new program design led to significant changes in the probability of being awarded with a contract. In particular, opportunities for candidates without attachment to the system were equalized. We thank the Subdirección General de Formación y Movilidad del Personal Investigador (Spanish Office of Training and Mobility of Researchers) for providing the raw data, and Miguel Benavente for help in data handling. Research funding from Ministry of Education, Grant Nos. ECO2009-11165 (Alonso-Borrego), ECO2011-25330 (Romero-Medina and Triossi) and ECO2009-10287 (Sánchez-Mangas) is acknowledged.

This article presents results of innovative surveys that tracked academic high achievers from five countries to wherever they moved in the world to directly measure at the micro level the channels through which high-skilled emigration affects sending countries. There are high levels of emigration and of return and the income gains to the best and brightest from migrating are an order of magnitude greater than any other effect. Most high-skilled migrants from poorer countries remit but involvement in trade and foreign direct investment is rare. Fiscal costs vary widely but are much less than the benefits to the migrants themselves. Two narratives drive discussions of the development impact of high-skilled migration. The first is the idea of a brain drain, whereby the departure of doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and other highly skilled workers decimates the human capital and fiscal revenues of sending countries (Bhagwati and Hamada, 1974). Such fears lead to calls for policies to restrict the flow of highly skilled workers, such as demands that developed countries stop recruiting doctors from developing nations and efforts by developing nations to restrict the ease of their highly skilled individuals migrating. 1 Contrasting with this is the view of a highly educated diaspora as a potent force for developing the local economy through remittances, trade, foreign direct investment (FDI) and knowledge transfers, with the experience of India and China in setting up technology firms as a result of diaspora working in Silicon Valley a prominent example (Saxenian, 2002). Economists have also emphasised that the possibility of migrating may spur human capital accumulation, potentially leading to a net increase in the education levels of those in the home country. 2

This paper uses micro data from the Demographic National Survey and the Census in Romania (2002-2003) and in Countries that have received large number of Romanian immigrants over the period 1990-2000 (US, Austria and Spain) to identify the wage earning ability (skills) of migrants and returnees relative to non-migrants. This determines what is called 'selection'. Using observable characteristics (education, age, gender and family status) that affect wage earning abilities of non-migrant, migrants to specific countries and returnees the authors can construct measures of average selection across skills for each skill group. Also, by observing the actual wages of these groups in Romania, US, Austria and Spain the author can measure the average and the skills-specific premium for migrating and for returning. As the three receiving countries differ in their skill compensation structure we can test the hypothesis that migration to a country is larger for those groups that receive higher migration premium. The authors find strong support for the idea that migrants in different skill groups move depending on the premium that they will get in the receiving country. Similarly the authors find evidence of a premium to returnee that is increasing in their skills, which drives positive selection of returnees. As migration and return seem consistent with optimal utility-maximizing choices of individuals the authors use a model of education, migration and return to predict the effects of increasing international mobility on skill and wage of Romanians. The authors find average positive long-run effect on average skills and wages in Romania from relaxing migration constraint.

In this note, we present a novel channel for a brain gain. Students from a developing country study in a developed host country. A higher permanent migration probability of these students appears to be a brain drain for the developing country in the first place. However, it induces the host country to improve its education quality, as a larger share of the generated benefits accrue in this host country. A higher education quality raises in turn the human capital of the returning students. As long as the permanent migration probability is not too large, this positive effect causes both aggregate and per-capita human capital to increase in the developing country. Thus, a brain gain occurs.

A decade ago, trade and investment liberalization dominated the global economic policy agenda. The World Trade Organization (WTO) had recently been created, the United States, Mexico and Canada were implementing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and much of Southeast Asia and South America were near the peak of an economic boom that was driven in part by greater openness to inflows of foreign capital. In bilateral and multilateral discussions of economic integration, global migration was often missing from the docket entirely. The growth in labor flows from low-income to high-income countries has not been greeted with universal enthusiasm, either by policy makers or academics. In theory, international migration increases economic efficiency by shifting labor from low-productivity to high-productivity environments. As workers move from Central America to the United States, North Africa to Europe, or Southeast Asia to Australia, the global labor supply shifts from labor abundant to labor-scarce economies, compressing international differences in factor prices and raising global gross domestic product (GDP). Migrants enjoy large income gains family members at home share in these gains through remittances, and non-migrating workers in the sending country enjoy higher wages thanks to a drop in local labor supply (Aydemir and Borjas, 2007).

Evidence is presented in support of the "brain gain" view that the likelihood of migrating to a destination wherein the returns to human capital (schooling) are high creates incentives to acquire human capital in migrant-sending areas. In Mexico, even though internal migrants are more educated than those who stay behind, the average level of schooling in the migrant-sending villages increases with internal migration. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the dynamic investment effects reverse the static, depletion effects of migration on schooling. Households' access to high-skill internal migration networks significantly increases the likelihood that children will attend school beyond the compulsory level. Access to low-skill internal networks has the opposite effect. By contrast with internal migration, migration from rural Mexico to the U.S. does not select positively on schooling, nor does it significantly influence human capital formation, even though remittances from Mexican migrants in the U.S. far outweigh remittances from internal migrants.

This study explores the main characteristics of potentials and challenges of the brain grain process in a post conflict and transitional situation, by reflecting the various views and perspectives of the relevant stakeholders in the field o migration from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The focus is on highly skilled tertiary graduates’ returnees from BiH and the assessment of their skills and knowledge recognition within the labour market and public administration. The study concludes that even though it has been widely estimated that advanced countries can significantly benefit regarding country's productivity from temporary movements of tertiary migrants, societies that challenge serious human capital flow can negatively value the potential benefits of the highly skilled returnees, while their advanced skills and knowledge most likely remains unrecognized.

International migration not only enables individuals to earn higher wages but also exposes them to new environments. The norms and values experienced in destination countries can change the behavior of migrants and also of family members left behind. This paper suggests that brain gain can take place due to a change in the educational aspirations of caregivers in migrant households. Estimates for Moldova show that international migration raises parental aspirations in households located at the lower end of the human capital distribution. The identification of these effects relies on GDP growth shocks in the destination countries and migration networks. These results imply that aspirations are a highly relevant determinant of intergenerational human capital transfer and that even temporary international migration can shift human capital formation to a higher steady state by inducing higher educational aspirations among caregivers.JEL classification:D03, O12, I21, J61.