The Impact of Governance Quality on Migration of Highly Educated Persons

This article examines the impact of governance quality on the migration of highly educated persons. Using human capital and social transition theories of migration, two hypotheses are proposed. The cross-sectional data (for 1990 and 2000) have been used to test the hypotheses via the framework of a random utility model. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to build a composite index of governance quality. Testing the hypotheses denotes that the significant gap between the selected Asian and European-American countries as for their quality of governance, has intensified the migration of highly educated persons from the selected developing countries to developed ones. Accordingly, the main policy insight of this paper is that in order to moderate such migration, the developing countries should take some measures to improve their transparency and accountability, rule of law, political stability, state effectiveness, and better rules. In short-term, developing countries need to take some measures in order to employ the capacities of their own educated persons. This insight is more important for Iran, because as for the migration of highly educated persons, it has recently been ranked as very high among the developing countries.