Bidding for Brains: Intellectual Property Rights and the International Migration of Knowledge Workers

Carol McAusland, Peter J. Kuhn

NBER Working Paper No. 15486
Issued in November 2009
NBER Program(s):   ITI   LS   PR

We introduce international mobility of knowledge workers into a model of Nash equilibrium IPR policy choice among countries. We show that governments have incentives to use IPRs in a bidding war for global talent, resulting in Nash equilibrium IPRs that can be too high, rather than too low, from a global welfare perspective. These incentives become stronger as developing countries grow in size and wealth, thus allowing them to prevent the 'poaching' of their 'brains' by larger, wealthier markets.

Published: McAusland, Carol & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Bidding for brains: Intellectual property rights and the international migration of knowledge workers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 77-87, May.

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Acknowledgments

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