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Remittances and the Brain Drain: Do More Skilled Migrants Remit More?

Faini, Riccardo

The publisher, Oxford Journals, did not grant permission to reproduce this article for public access. To buy the article please visit http://wber.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/2/.

This paper examines how the skill level of migrants (skilled or unskilled) affects the level of remittances sent home by international migrants. Using a variety of approaches, including instrumental variables, it finds that skilled migrants remit less than unskilled migrants. Since skilled migrants are more likely to bring their families and to spend more time abroad, their propensity to remit is less than that of unskilled migrants. The author concludes that the brain drain of skilled migrants going to work abroad is thus unlikely to boost the flow of remittances to developing countries.

Published: 2007

Citation: Faini, Riccardo, "Remittances and the Brain Drain: Do More Skilled Migrants Remit More?," World Bank Economic Review in 21(2), ed. , 2007, 177–191.

Collected in:

Anthology
Topic 8 – Economic Determinants of Remittances