IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/370.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College - Working Paper 370

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Clemens, Colum Graham, and Stephen Howes

Abstract

Developing countries invest in training skilled workers and can lose part of their investment if those workers emigrate. One response is for the destination countries to design ways to participate in financing skilled emigrants’ training before they migrate—linking skill creation and skill mobility. Such designs can learn from the experience of the Australian-aid-funded Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC). The APTC is financing and conducting vocational training in five Pacific island developing countries for thousands of workers with the objective of providing them with opportunities to find employment at home and abroad—including in Australia. With thousands of graduates across the region the APTC has attained its goal of skill creation, but has not attained its goal of skill mobility. This paper establishes and explains this finding, and draws lessons for future initiatives that may seek to link skill creation with higher levels of skill mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Clemens, Colum Graham, and Stephen Howes, 2014. "Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College - Working Paper 370," Working Papers 370, Center for Global Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgd:wpaper:370
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/skill-development-regional-mobility.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. John Gibson & David McKenzie & Steven Stillman, 2013. "Accounting for Selectivity and Duration-Dependent Heterogeneity When Estimating the Impact of Emigration on Incomes and Poverty in Sending Areas," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(2), pages 247-280.
    3. repec:ecj:econjl:v:122:y:2012:i::p:339-375 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Khilji, Nasir M. & Zampelli, Ernest M., 1994. "The fungibility of U.S. military and non-military assistance and the impacts on expenditures of major aid recipients," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 345-362, April.
    5. Feyzioglu, Tarhan & Swaroop, Vinaya & Zhu, Min, 1998. "A Panel Data Analysis of the Fungibility of Foreign Aid," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(1), pages 29-58, January.
    6. Clemens, Michael A., 2009. "Skill Flow: A Fundamental Reconsideration of Skilled-Worker Mobility and Development," MPRA Paper 19186, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. World Bank, 2007. "World Development Report 2008," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 5990, April.
    8. Danielle Hay & Stephen Howes, 2012. "Australia’s Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme: why has take-up been so low?," Development Policy Centre Discussion Papers 1217, Development Policy Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    9. Nathan Nunn & Nancy Qian, 2014. "The Determinants of Food-Aid Provisions to Africa and the Developing World," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume IV: Sustainable Growth, pages 161-178, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. David McKenzie & John Gibson & Steven Stillman, 2010. "How Important Is Selection? Experimental vs. Non-Experimental Measures of the Income Gains from Migration," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 913-945, June.
    11. Ilyana Kuziemko & Eric Werker, 2006. "How Much Is a Seat on the Security Council Worth? Foreign Aid and Bribery at the United Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(5), pages 905-930, October.
    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. Jesse Doyle & Stephen Howes, 2015. "Australia's Seasonal Worker Program : Demand-side Constraints and Suggested Reforms," World Bank Publications - Reports 21491, The World Bank Group.
    2. Michael Clemens, 2015. "Global Skill Partnerships: a proposal for technical training in a mobile world," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-18, December.

    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. Jackline Wahba, 2015. "Selection, selection, selection: the impact of return migration," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(3), pages 535-563, July.
    2. John Gibson & David McKenzie & Halahingano Rohorua & Steven Stillman, 2018. "The Long-term Impacts of International Migration: Evidence from a Lottery," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 32(1), pages 127-147.
    3. Eugen Dimant & Tim Krieger & Daniel Meierrieks, 2024. "Paying Them to Hate US: The Effect of US Military Aid on Anti-American Terrorism, 1968–2018," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(663), pages 2772-2802.
    4. Michael A. Clemens & Colum Graham & Stephen Howes, 2015. "Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(11), pages 1502-1517, November.
    5. van de Walle, Dominique & Mu, Ren, 2007. "Fungibility and the flypaper effect of project aid: Micro-evidence for Vietnam," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 667-685, November.
    6. Feeny, Simon, 2007. "Foreign Aid and Fiscal Governance in Melanesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 439-453, March.
    7. David McKenzie & Caroline Theoharides & Dean Yang, 2014. "Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market: Evidence from Filipino Migration and Wage Responses to Destination Country Economic Shocks," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 49-75, April.
    8. Juergen Bitzer & Erkan Goeren, 2018. "Foreign Aid and Subnational Development: A Grid Cell Analysis," Working Papers V-407-18, University of Oldenburg, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2018.
    9. Langlotz, Sarah & Potrafke, Niklas, 2019. "Does development aid increase military expenditure?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 735-757.
    10. Joseph Wright, 2009. "How Foreign Aid Can Foster Democratization in Authoritarian Regimes," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 552-571, July.
    11. David McKenzie & Dean Yang, 2012. "Experimental Approaches in Migration Studies," Chapters, in: Carlos Vargas-Silva (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Migration, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. van de Walle, Dominique & Cratty, Dorothyjean, 2005. "Do donors get what they paid for? micro evidence on the fungibility of development project aid," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3542, The World Bank.
    13. David McKenzie, 2024. "Fears and Tears: Should More People Be Moving within and from Developing Countries, and What Stops this Movement?," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 39(1), pages 75-96.
    14. Feeny, Simon & McGillivray, Mark, 2010. "Aid and public sector fiscal behaviour in failing states," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(5), pages 1006-1016, September.
    15. Baldwin, Kate & Bhavnani, Rikhil R., 2013. "Ancillary Experiments: Opportunities and Challenges," WIDER Working Paper Series 024, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Mark McGillivray & Oliver Morrissey, 2001. "Fiscal Effects of Aid," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2001-61, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Furukawa, Mitsuaki & Takahata, Junichiro, 2013. "Is GBS Still a Preferable Aid Modality?," Working Papers 50, JICA Research Institute.
    18. Elisabetta LODIGIANI & Sara SALOMONE, 2020. "Migration-induced transfers of norms: the case of female political empowerment," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(4), pages 435-477, December.
    19. Elisabetta LODIGIANI & Sara SALOMONE, 2012. "Migration-induced Transfers of Norms. The case of Female Political Empowerment," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2012001, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    20. repec:bla:rdevec:v:13:y:2009:i:s1:p:526-542 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. John Gibson & David McKenzie & Halahingano Rohorua, 2014. "Development Impacts of Seasonal and Temporary Migration: A Review of Evidence from the Pacific and Southeast Asia," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 18-32, January.

    More about this item

    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
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    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:370. 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.