TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Kuhn, Peter J.
AU  - McAusland, Carol
        TI  - Consumers and the Brain Drain: Product Design and the Gains from Emigration
        PY  - 2008/Jul/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 3602
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp3602
        AB  - We consider the welfare effects of skilled worker emigration in a context where skilled labor plays a role in product design. We show such emigration can benefit the residents left behind, even when consumers’ tastes exhibit a form of home bias. This is because emigration improves the design of goods designed by skilled emigrants but consumed in the sending country. In contrast to existing models of beneficial brain drain, our results do not require agglomeration economies, education-related externalities, remittances, return migration, or an emigration “lottery”. Instead, they are driven purely by differences in market size that induce skilled emigrants to design better products abroad than at home.
        KW  - product quality
KW  - international labor migration
KW  - brain drain
        ER  -