Leveraging the Global Talent Pool to Jumpstart Prosperity in Emerging Economies

A key to economic prosperity is the adoption of technology, but technological diffusion is often tied to the knowhow of people that develop and use technology. The most effective way to diffuse technology is to enable people with talent and knowhow to freely move across borders, and freely choose the places where they can be most productive. The cross-border mobility of talent, as well as their economic integration is oftentimes highly regulated and restricted. In this research endeavor, we postulate that in developing countries, migration and integration restrictions are more severe and economically more binding. They are economically more binding because these economies suffer from a bigger technological gap and, hence, stand to benefit more from accessing the kind of knowhow that would enable the adoption of technologies. Anecdotal evidence suggests that their restrictions are often biased against high-skilled individuals, limiting the movement of entrepreneurs, professionals, scientists, and inventors. Because most emerging economies are economically less attractive as destinations per se, such barriers may have a larger dissuasive effect on the attraction of global talent.

This study will help us measure countries' degree of openness towards different groups of migrants, and test the hypothesis that more developed economies are more open to international migrants, and in particular to international talent.

Openness at the border doesn't necessarily translate into integration inside the country. Countries with similar levels of migrant acceptance can have different success in integrating these migrants. Our project attempts to measure the degree to which countries successfully integrate groups of migrants, and in particularly migrants that can bring about talent and skills into a country.