Spatial Mobility in Elite Academic Institutions in Economics : the Case of Spain

Using a dataset of 3,540 economists working in 2007 in 125 of the best academic centers in 22 countries, this paper presents some evidence on spatial mobility patterns in Spain and other countries conditional on some personal, department, and country characteristics. There are productivity and other reasons for designing a scientific policy with the aims of attracting foreign talent (brain gain), minimizing the elite brain drain, and recovering nationals who have earned a Ph.D. or have spent some time abroad (brain circulation). Our main result is that Spain has more brain gain, more brain circulation and less brain drain than comparable large, continental European countries, i.e. Germany, France, and Italy, where economists have similar opportunities for publishing their research in English or in their own languages. We suggest that these results can be mostly explained by the governance changes introduced in a number of Spanish institutions in 1975-1990 by a sizable contingent of Spanish economists coming back home after attending graduate school abroad. These initiatives were also favored by the availability of resources to finance certain research related activities, including international Ph.D. programs.This is the fourth version of a Working Paper in this series with the title “Governance, brain drain, and brain gain in elite academic institutions in economics. The case of Spain”, published in December 2017. Carrasco and Ruiz-Castillo acknowledge financial support from the Spanish MEC (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad) through grants No. ECO2015-65204-P and ECO2014-55953-P, respectively, as well as grants MDM 2014-0431 from the MEC, and MadEco-CM (S2015/HUM-3444) from the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid to their economics department