The international migration literature has highlighted four key stylized facts from the perspective of the source country: (i) Migration rates are notably high, with some nations seeing over ten percent of their population living abroad. (ii) Certain developing countries have witnessed a significant exodus of skilled workers, commonly referred to as brain drain, spanning several decades. (iii) Migrants often maintain strong ties to their country of origin, evidenced by the substantial remittances they send back to their relatives. (iv) Migration is not necessarily permanent, as a considerable number of individuals return to their home country after a period spent abroad. In this paper, we present a theoretical model that endogenously explains these facts. Our model allows us to explore key issues in migration literature from a theoretical standpoint. We analyze the general equilibrium effects of migration, its long-term implications, and its welfare consequences. Additionally, we investigate whether the combined impact of return migration and remittances can counterbalance the effects of skilled migration. Finally, we evaluate the efficacy of policy interventions designed to mitigate the adverse effects of brain drain.

Existing empirical literature provides converging evidence that selective emigration enhances human capital accumulation in the world's poorest countries. However, the within-country distribution of such brain gain effects has received limited attention. Focusing on Senegal, we provide evidence that the brain gain mechanism primarily benefits the wealthiest regions that are internationally connected and have better access to education. Conversely, human capital responses are negligible in regions lacking international connectivity, and even negative in better connected regions with inadequate educational opportunities. These results extend to internal migration, implying that highly vulnerable populations are trapped in the least developed areas.

How free should the movement of people be compared to the movement of capital? Unlike those who defend a presumption in favour of symmetrical treatment, I suggest that the presumption in favour of free human movement is much stronger than the same presumption in favour of the free movement of capital. Against those who claim that capital ought to be freer to move than people, I argue that states have much stronger reasons, both of distributive justice and cultural integrity, to constrain capital movement than they have to restrict human movement. Further, the case for restricting skilled workers' right to exit their country in the case of brain drain is much weaker than the parallel case for restricting investors' right to exit from a country that faces a threat of capital flight. Overall, my argument supports the ‘reversed asymmetry thesis’: People should be much freer to move than capital.

In this paper, we investigate the long-term effects of climate change on the mobility of working-age people. We use a world economy model that covers almost all the countries around the world, and distinguishes between rural and urban regions as well as between flooded and unflooded areas. The model is calibrated to match international and internal mobility data by education level for the last 30 years, and is then simulated under climate change variants. We endogenize the size, dyadic, and skill structure of climate migration. When considering moderate climate scenarios, we predict mobility responses in the range of 70–108 million workers over the course of the twenty-first century. Most of these movements are local or inter-regional. South–South international migration responses are smaller, while the South–North migration response is of the “brain drain” type and induces a permanent increase in the number of foreigners in OECD countries in the range of 6–9% only. Changes in the sea level mainly translate into forced local movements. By contrast, inter-regional and international movements are sensitive to temperature-related changes in productivity. Lastly, we show that relaxing international migration restrictions may exacerbate the poverty effect of climate change at origin if policymakers are unable to select/screen individuals in extreme poverty.

La fédération européenne des internes de psychiatrie (EFPT) a réalisé une étude observationnelle sur la migration des internes de psychiatrie en Europe suite à un rapport de la WPA . Entre 2013 et 2014, 2281 internes de 33 pays ont répondu à un questionnaire sur internet. Nous présenterons les résultats concernant les internes faisant leurs études en France. Au total, 193 personnes ont répondu en France (2e pays répondeur). Parmi ces internes, 8 n’avaient pas la nationalité française, ce qui fait de la France le 7e pays le plus attractif de l’étude. A contrario, 4 français émigrés à l’étranger ont répondu à l’étude. En termes d’expérience de mobilité, 30 % des français ont déjà vécu à l’étranger entre 3 et 12 mois. Seuls 5 % des internes ont passé plus d’un an à l’étranger, soit 3 fois moins que dans les autres pays européens (p < 10−4) ce qui place la France à la 14e place en termes de nombre d’émigrants. Cette faible mobilité ne s’explique pas par une désaffection : 71 % des internes ont déjà envisagé de partir à l’étranger. Cependant, 65 % des répondeurs pensent qu’ils resteront en France dans les 5 prochaines années. Les raisons principales pour quitter la France sont personnelles, académiques ou liées à l’environnement culturel. Le salaire des internes de psychiatrie en France est compris entre 1500 et 1999 €, ce qui est un salaire moyen en Europe et dont ils semblent modérément satisfaits et qui ne représente pas une réelle motivation à l’émigration. D’autres difficultés davantage culturelles ou liés à la faiblesse des aides à la mobilité pourraient expliquer cette moindre mobilité par rapport aux autres pays européens. Depuis 2011, l’EFPT cherche à répondre à cette volonté de mobilité par un programme d’échange de 2 à 6 semaines parmi 13 pays européens.

This study examines the gender dimension of the brain drain in Turkey, drawing on the results of an online survey to argue that the gender inequality present in sending countries can serve as a push factor in women's decisions to migrate and return or not return. The results indicate that the gender gap in the labor market in Turkey is an important factor in shaping the return intentions of female Turkish professionals and students living abroad. The findings reveal a gender gap in return intentions independent of other main factors, such as age, field of study/occupation, or duration of stay.

This article analyzes the effect of migration from a less advanced economy to a more advanced economy on economic growth. The analysis is performed in a two-country growth model with endogenous fertility, in which congestion diseconomies are incorporated. The model shows that out-migration increases fertility and reduces human capital in the source economy. At the same time, in-migration reduces fertility and can increase or decrease the average level of human capital in the host economy. I show how migration affects the inter-temporal evolution of human capital in the world economy. I also demonstrate that a tax imposed on immigrants in the host economy can increase human capital accumulation in the receiving and sending economies and the world as a whole.

This essay examines the recent rise in popularity of science fiction in Africa. I argue that this growth can be traced to key shifts within the logic of structural adjustment programs. Over the last twenty years, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have begun to place a heightened emphasis on “poverty reduction strategies” (or PRSs). These PRSs have taken the two organizations’ longstanding commitment to free-market policies and adapted them to the rhetoric of social and economic justice by suggesting that “sustainable” welfare programs can only be constructed through the “long-term” benefits of well-planned “institutions.”

As I show, this vision of long-term development has encouraged a move toward fictional forms capable of speaking to elongated temporal scales. Using Nnedi Okorafor’s novel Lagoon as my primary example, I investigate how sci-fi narratives have struggled to represent social agency within the longue durée of institutional planning.