Does human flight and brain drain affect cross-border acquisitions? Insights into tobit and binomial regression models

India has witnessed dramatic expansion in cross-border acquisition (CBA) activities. Although extant literature has examined various determinants of the flow of CBA activities to emerging economies, the role of human flight and brain drain (HFBD) has remained underexplored. Moreover, India’s HFBD index, indicating the economic consequence of brain drain, has been decreasing in the past three decades while its inbound CBA activities are escalating. Against this background, drawing on institutional and ethnic network theories, we develop a hypothesis to understand the influence of HFBD on CBA volume. We also examine the moderating effect of economic distance (ED) through which HFBD impacts India’s share of CBA. We use a sample of 804 country–year observations covering 57 home countries that acquired Indian target firms in the 1990–2020 period. Our findings show that India’s HFBD is inversely correlated with its CBA volume, indicating that the reduced economic consequences of HFBD boost India’s attraction of CBA volume. Additionally, ED significantly moderates the impact of HFBD on CBA volume. The findings of this research offer key insights for policymakers and multinational enterprises regarding brain drain and CBAs.