Using new data on emigration rates by education level, we examine the impact of brain drain migration on human capital formation in developing countries. We find evidence of a positive effect of skilled migration prospects on gross human capital formation in a cross-section of 127 countries. For each country of the sample we then estimate the net effect of the brain drain using counterfactual simulations. Countries combining relatively low levels of human capital and low emigration rates are shown to experience a 'beneficial brain drain', and conversely, there are more losers than winners, and the former tend to lose relatively more than what the latter gain. Copyright � 2008 The Author(s).

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a b s t r a c tMigration flows are shaped by a complex combination of self-selection and out-selection mechanisms, both of which are affected by the presence of a diaspora abroad. In this paper, we analyze how existing diasporas (the stock of people born in a country and living in another one) affect the size and human-capital structure of current bilateral migration flows. Our analysis exploits a bilateral data set on international migration by educational attainment from 195 countries to 30 OECD countries in 1990 and 2000. Based on simple microfoundations and controlling for various determinants of migration, we found that diasporas increase migration flows and lower their average educational level. Interestingly, diasporas explain majority of the variability of migration flows and selection. This suggests that, without changing the generosity of family reunion programs, education-based selection rules are likely to have moderate impact. Our results are highly robust to the econometric techniques, accounting for the large proportion of zeros and endogeneity problems.

We examine natural disasters and long-run climatic factors as potential determinants of international migration, implementing a panel dataset of bilateral migration flows from 1960 to 2000. We find no direct effect of long-run climatic factors on international migration across our entire sample. These results are robust when conditioning on origin-country characteristics, when considering migrants returning home, and when accounting for the potential endogeneity of migrant networks. Rather, we find evidence of indirect effects of environmental factors operating through wages. We find that epidemics and miscellaneous incidents spur international migration, and there is strong evidence that natural disasters beget greater flows of migrants to urban environs.

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The use of bilateral data for the analysis of international migration is at the same time a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because the dyadic dimension of the data allows researchers to address a number of previously unanswered questions, but it is also a curse for the various analytical challenges it gives rise to. This paper presents the theoretical foundations of the estimation of gravity models of international migration, and the main difficulties that have to be tackled in the econometric analysis, such as the nature of migration data, how to account for multilateral resistance to migration or endogeneity. We also review some empirical evidence that has considered these issues.

Migration is one response to climatic stress and shocks. In this article we review the recent literature across various disciplines on the effects of climate change on migration. We explore key features of the relationship between climate change and migration, distinguishing between fast-onset and slow-onset climatic events and examining the causes of heterogeneity in migratory responses to climate events. We also seek to shed light on the interactions between different types of adaptations to climate events as well as the mechanisms underlying the relationship between climate change and migration. Based on our review of the existing literature, we identify gaps in the literature and present some general policy recommendations and priorities for research on climate-induced migration.

Recent data on international migration of skilled workers define skilled migrants by education level without distinguishing whether they acquired their education in the home or the host country. This article uses immigrants' age of entry as a proxy for where they acquired their education. Data on age of entry are available from a subset of receiving countries that together represent 77 percent of total skilled immigration to countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Using these data and a simple gravity model to estimate the age-of-entry structure of the remaining 23 percent, alternative brain drain measures are proposed that exclude immigrants who arrived before ages 12, 18, and 22. JEL Codes: F22, J24 Recent data sets on international skilled migration (Carrington and Detragiache 1998; Adams 2003; Docquier and Marfouk 2004, 2006; Dumont and Lemaitre 2004) define skilled immigrants as foreign-born workers with university or post-secondary training. This definition, based on the country of birth, does not account for whether education was acquired in the home or the host country and may therefore appear either too inclusive or too exclusive depending on the intended use of the data. For example, the definition would seem too narrow for measuring the extent of a country's skilled diaspora, but may be too inclusive for estimating the fiscal cost of the brain drain for the