This paper presents a cross country empirical investigation of impacts of skilled labor emigration on sending country’s institutional development. Based on Albert Hirschman’s “Exit and Voice” model, we analyze different channels through which emigration can affect institutions; using Djankov et al.’s “Institutional Possibility Frontier” framework, we assess emigration’s heterogeneous effects on...

International flows of high-skilled talent from developing countries to high-income OECD countries have grown in recent decades. Between 1970 and 1997, the number of foreign-born individuals in science and engineering occupations in the United States increased at three times the rate as that of natives, going from 7.6 percent in 1970 to 15 percent in 1997 (D’Costa, 2008). More recent data from ...