Can Intellectual Property Rights Protection Generate Brain

This paper studies the interaction between international migration and intellectual property rights (IPR) in determining innovation performance of developing countries. Although emigra-tion may directly cause brain drain, it generates a ow of knowledge acquired by emigrants abroad back to their home countries, which could be better absorbed under sound IPR institu-tions. IPRs thus work as a moderating factor to overcome brain drain by creating the conditions to better absorb potential gains from migration. Using a panel dataset of emerging and develop-ing countries, we establish a positive correlation between emigration and innovation when IPRs are su ¢ ciently strong