Globalisation, the Mobility of Skilled Workers, and Economic Growth: Constructing a Novel Brain Drain/Gain Index for European Countries

In the knowledge-based economy, skilled workers can create ideas and innovations, as well as leverage economic growth. While there is a large body of literature examining how the mobility of skilled workers influences the economic growth of countries, little research focuses on national differences between countries, a gap this study aims to plug. This paper constructs a novel brain drain/gain index to examine the extent of mobility of skilled workers in 30 European countries between 2001 and 2015. It is found that economically advanced countries are more likely to be net recipient of tertiary graduates, while less developed countries tend to lose their highly educated workers. In addition, the 2008 economic crisis exacerbates the gap between countries in their performance of retaining and attracting skilled workers. Nevertheless, the picture of graduate mobility is rather complicated with many notable outliers, and there are a number of directions for future research.