New Article On Global Patterns of Migration for Zagheni
Posted: 2/6/2023 (CSDE Research)
In his latest article “Global patterns of migration of scholars with economic development” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CSDE External Affiliate Emilio Zagheni utilizes metadata to estimate migration of scholars based on information on changes in their institutional affiliations over time. The authors produce a database of yearly international migration flows of scholars, for all countries from 1998 to 2017. Utilizing the open-access database to provide descriptive evidence on the relationship between economic development and the emigration propensity of scholars. Statistical analysis using generalized additive mixed models reveals that emigration rates initially decrease as GDP per capita increases. Then, starting from around 25,000 dollars (2017 constant international dollars at purchasing power parity), the trend reverses and emigration propensity increases as countries get richer. This U-shaped pattern contrasts with what has been found in the literature for emigration rates for the general population and calls for theoretical frameworks to understand the heterogeneous responses of migration to development.