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Does corruption promote emigration? An empirical examination

Author

Listed:
  • Arusha Cooray
  • Friedrich Schneider
Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of corruption on the emigration rate of low-, medium- and high-skilled individuals at the country level. Fixed-effects, system generalized method of moments (GMM) and instrumental variable estimations are used to establish a causal relationship between emigration and corruption. The empirical results indicate that as corruption increases, the emigration rate of high-skilled migrants also increases. The emigration rate of individuals with low and medium levels of educational attainment, however, increases at low levels of corruption and then decreases beyond a threshold of 3.4–4.0, where corruption is measured on a scale of 0 (not corrupt) to 10 (totally corrupt). Splitting the sample by income inequality suggests that increased inequality reduces the ability for medium- and low-skilled migrants to emigrate. Therefore, government action should focus on controlling corruption in order to prevent a brain drain. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Suggested Citation

  • Arusha Cooray & Friedrich Schneider, 2016. "Does corruption promote emigration? An empirical examination," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 293-310, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:29:y:2016:i:1:p:293-310
    DOI: 10.1007/s00148-015-0563-y
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corruption; Emigration; Educational attainment; 017; 05; D78; H2; H11; H26;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O5 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance

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