The Effect of Governance Institutions on International Migration of Iranian Workforce

Workforce is one of the most important production factors, and, hence, its migration damages economic opportunities in the society. In this article, we examine the impact of governance institutions and economic factors on the migration of labor force from Iran between 2002 and 2012. In our study, we use theoretical foundations of the attraction pattern, and the estimation of relationships is done by the STATA software. We have surveyed the immigration of Iranian workforce to certain OECD countries that have the largest workforce share from Iran. The results of this study show that improvement of total governance index and its sub-indices including political stability, financial regulations, rule of law, and control of corruption in destination countries are the attraction factors. However, the lower quality of these indicators in Iran is the most important factor in exclusion of Iran's labor force through immigration. Furthermore, the effect of the performance indicators and the government effectiveness is not significant, and the rights of expression and responsiveness have negative effects on immigration. On this basis, the improvement of governance institutions in Iran can have an essential role in reducing immigration.