2011): Return migration and human capital accumulation

In this paper we present a model that explains migrations as decisions that respond to where human capital can be acquired more efficiently, and where the return to human capital is highest. The basic framework is a dynamic Roy model in which a worker possesses two distinct skills that can be augmented by learning by doing, at a different rate, and commanding a different implicit price, in different countries. Our analysis contributes to the literature on the selection of immigrants and return migrants, by offering a richer framework that may help to accommodate selections of emigrants and return migrants that are not immediately compatible with the one-dimensional skill model. Our analysis has also implications for the debate on brain drain and brain gain. In the two skills model presented here, return migration can lead to a mitigation of the brain drain, or even the creation of a "brain gain", where those who return are more productive at home than those who left