IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/363.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Case against Taxes and Quotas on High-Skill Emigration - Working Paper 363

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Clemens

Abstract

Skilled workers have a rising tendency to emigrate from developing countries, raising fears that their departure harms the poor. To mitigate such harm, researchers have proposed a variety of policies designed to tax or restrict high-skill migration. Those policies have been justified as Pigovian regulations to raise efficiency by internalizing externalities, and as non-Pigovian regulations grounded in equity or ethics. This paper challenges both sets of justifications, arguing that Pigovian regulations on skilled emigration are inefficient and non-Pigovian regulations are inequitable and unethical. It concludes by discussing a different class of policy intervention that, in contrast, has the potential to raise welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Clemens, 2014. "A Case against Taxes and Quotas on High-Skill Emigration - Working Paper 363," Working Papers 363, Center for Global Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:363
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/clemens%20case%20against%20taxes%20rev_2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Albert Bollard & David McKenzie & Melanie Morten & Hillel Rapoport, 2011. "Remittances and the Brain Drain Revisited: The Microdata Show That More Educated Migrants Remit More," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 25(1), pages 132-156, May.
    2. Beine, Michel & Docquier, Frédéric & Oden-Defoort, Cecily, 2011. "A Panel Data Analysis of the Brain Gain," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 523-532, April.
    3. Auriol, Emmanuelle & Warlters, Michael, 2012. "The marginal cost of public funds and tax reform in Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 58-72.
    4. Batista, Catia & Lacuesta, Aitor & Vicente, Pedro C., 2012. "Testing the ‘brain gain’ hypothesis: Micro evidence from Cape Verde," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(1), pages 32-45.
    5. Chand, Satish & Clemens, Michael A., 2023. "Human capital investment under exit options: Evidence from a natural quasi-experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    6. Sarah Baird & Jed Friedman & Norbert Schady, 2011. "Aggregate Income Shocks and Infant Mortality in the Developing World," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 847-856, August.
    7. Marigee P. Bacolod, 2007. "Do Alternative Opportunities Matter? The Role of Female Labor Markets in the Decline of Teacher Quality," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(4), pages 737-751, November.
    8. Baumol, William J, 1972. "On Taxation and the Control of Externalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(3), pages 307-322, June.
    9. Simon Commander & Rupa Chanda & Mari Kangasniemi & L. Alan Winters, 2008. "The Consequences of Globalisation: India's Software Industry and Cross‐border Labour Mobility1," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 187-211, February.
    10. Balacs, Peter & Gordon, Anne, 1975. "Brain drain and income taxation: A UK case study," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 3(10), pages 677-703, October.
    11. Dilip Ratha & Sonia Plaza, 2011. "Diaspora for Development in Africa," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2295, December.
    12. Avato, Johanna, 2009. "Migration pressures and immigration policies : new evidence on the selection of migrants," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 52449, The World Bank.
    13. Antwi, James & Phillips, David C., 2013. "Wages and health worker retention: Evidence from public sector wage reforms in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 101-115.
    14. Samuel Bazzi & Michael A. Clemens, 2013. "Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 152-186, April.
    15. Satish Chand & Michael A. Clemens, 2008. "Skilled emigration and skill creation: A quasi-experiment," International and Development Economics Working Papers idec08-05, International and Development Economics.
    16. Michael Clemens, 2007. "Do Visas Kill? Health Effects of African Health Professional Emigration," Working Papers 114, Center for Global Development.
    17. Costas Azariadis & Allan Drazen, 1990. "Threshold Externalities in Economic Development," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 501-526.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valerio Mendoza, Octasiano Miguel & Borsi, Mihály Tamás & Comim, Flavio, 2022. "Human capital dynamics in China: Evidence from a club convergence approach," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Petr Procházka, 2020. "Jurisdictions with lowest effective tax rates in the post-BEPS landscape - CbCR evidence and implications," European Financial and Accounting Journal, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2020(1), pages 33-52.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Clemens Michael A., 2014. "A Case Against Taxes and Quotas on High-Skill Emigration," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-39, June.
    2. Frédéric Docquier & Hillel Rapoport, 2012. "Globalization, Brain Drain, and Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 50(3), pages 681-730, September.
    3. Michael A. Clemens, 2016. "Losing our minds? New research directions on skilled emigration and development," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 37(7), pages 1227-1248, October.
    4. Antwi, James & Phillips, David C., 2013. "Wages and health worker retention: Evidence from public sector wage reforms in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 101-115.
    5. Ha, Wei & Yi, Junjian & Zhang, Junsen, 2016. "Brain drain, brain gain, and economic growth in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 322-337.
    6. Di Maria, Corrado & Lazarova, Emiliya A., 2012. "Migration, Human Capital Formation, and Growth: An Empirical Investigation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 938-955.
    7. John Gibson & David McKenzie, 2012. "The Economic Consequences of ‘Brain Drain’ of the Best and Brightest: Microeconomic Evidence from Five Countries," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 122(560), pages 339-375, May.
    8. Narcisse Cha'Ngom & Christoph Deuster & Frédéric Docquier & Joël Machado, 2023. "Selective Migration and Economic Development: A Generalized Approach," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-06, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    9. Björn NILSSON, 2019. "Education and migration: insights for policymakers," Working Paper 23ca9c54-061a-4d60-967c-f, Agence française de développement.
    10. Biavaschi, Costanza & Burzyński, Michał & Elsner, Benjamin & Machado, Joël, 2020. "Taking the skill bias out of global migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    11. Giovanni Peri & William Ambrosini & Karin Mayr & Dragos Radu, 2012. "The Selection of Migrants and Returnees in Romania: Evidence and long-run implications," Working Papers 136, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    12. Frédéric Docquier, 2014. "The brain drain from developing countries," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-31, May.
    13. Costanza Biavaschi & Michal Burzynski & Benjamin Elsner & Joël Machado, 2016. "The Gain from the Drain - Skill-biased Migration and Global Welfare," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1624, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    14. Beine, Michel & Docquier, Frédéric & Oden-Defoort, Cecily, 2011. "A Panel Data Analysis of the Brain Gain," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 523-532, April.
    15. Ambrosini, J. William & Mayr, Karin & Peri, Giovanni & Radu, Dragos, 2012. "The Selection of Migrants and Returnees in Romania: Evidence and Long-Run Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 6664, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    16. Marco Delogu & Frédéric Docquier & Joël Machado, 2018. "Globalizing labor and the world economy: the role of human capital," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 223-258, June.
    17. John Gibson & David McKenzie, 2011. "Eight Questions about Brain Drain," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 107-128, Summer.
    18. repec:nbr:nberch:13368 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Yaw Nyarko, 2014. "The Returns to the Brain Drain and Brain Circulation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Computations Using Data from Ghana," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume II: Human Capital, pages 305-345, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Clemens, Michael A., 2009. "Skill Flow: A Fundamental Reconsideration of Skilled-Worker Mobility and Development," MPRA Paper 19186, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Elisabetta Lodigiani & Luca Marchiori & I-Ling Shen, 2016. "Revisiting the Brain Drain Literature with Insights from a Dynamic General Equilibrium World Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 557-573, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    brain drain; migration; immigration; emigration; mobility; labor; skill; education; human capital;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:363. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Publications Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cgdevus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.