Brain Drain and Brain Gain in Italy and Ireland in the Age of Mass Migration

No 201907, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: Emigrants from Italy and Ireland contributed disproportionately to the Age of Mass Migration. That their departure improved the living standards of those they left behind is hardly in doubt. Nevertheless, a voluminous literature on the selectivity of migrant flows— both from sending and receiving country perspectives—has given rise to claims that migration generates both ‘brain drains’ and ‘brain gains’. On the one hand, positive or negative selection among emigrants may affect the level of human capital in sending countries. On the other hand, the prospect of emigration and return migration may both spur investment in schooling in source countries. This essay describes the history of emigration from Italy and Ireland during the Age of Mass Migration from these perspectives.

Keywords: Migration; Brain Drain; Brain Gain; Human Capital; Italy; Ireland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J61 N33 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-int, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/9681 First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Brain Drain and Brain Gain in Italy and Ireland in the Age of Mass Migration (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201907

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nicolas Clifton ().