The International Migration Of Knowledge Workers: When Is Brain Drain Beneficial?

The authors consider the welfare effects of the emigration of workers who produce a public good (knowledge). They distinguish between the knowledge diversion and knowledge creation effects of such emigration, and show that the remaining residents of a country can gain from emigration, even when tastes for knowledge goods exhibit a kind of 'Home bias'. In contrast to existing models of Beneficial Brain Drain (BBD), the results do not require agglomeration economies, education-related externalities, remittances, return migration, or an emigration 'Lottery'.