Publication

This paper examines the efficiency, equity and ethics of various policy tools that seek to restrict the emigration of skilled workers from developing countries. These include taxes on skilled migration, quotas on the numbers of skilled migrants and punitive actions against recruitment intermediaries. The author offers a systematic policy analysis of these tools and argues that most of them are not efficient, equitable, or ethical. He suggests that the most efficient alternative to these tools would be for skilled migrants to have the opportunity to enter into voluntary agreements to partially subsidize the training of new skilled workers at home.