IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/ppaper/40.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Global Skill Partnerships: A Proposal for Technical Training in a Mobile World

Author

Listed:
  • Michael A. Clemens

Abstract

Certain skills are in high demand in advanced economies, particularly in basic health care. Skilled migrants from developing countries are likely to fill part of that demand. This has aroused fears that migration will harm development, by draining both human and financial resources from the countries migrants leave. This paper reviews and critiques existing policy proposals to address the development effects of skilled migration. It then proposes a new kind of policy tool to regulate skilled migration in a way that benefits origin countries, destination countries, and migrants: Global Skill Partnerships. These are bilateral public-private agreements to link skill creation and skill mobility in a mutually beneficial and equitable way. Countries of migrant origin and destination agree ex ante who will bear the costs of training skilled migrants, and allow a small portion of the large economic gains from skill mobility to foster skill creation in origin countries. The paper describes how such an agreement might work in one profession (nursing) and one region (North Africa). Numerous related initiatives around the world offer lessons for proper design.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael A. Clemens, 2014. "Global Skill Partnerships: A Proposal for Technical Training in a Mobile World," Policy Papers 40, Center for Global Development.
    • Handle: RePEc:cgd:ppaper:40
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cgdev.org/publication/global-skill-partnerships-proposal-technical-training-mobile-world?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jun Inoue, 2013. "Healthcare: The case of Japan," Migration Letters, Migration Letters, vol. 10(2), pages 191-209, May.
    2. Michael A. Clemens, 2009. "Skill Flow: A Fundamental Reconsideration of Skilled-Worker Mobility and Development," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-08, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Apr 2009.
    3. Michael Clemens, Colum Graham, and Stephen Howes, 2014. "Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College - Working Paper 370," Working Papers 370, Center for Global Development.
    4. Michel Grignon & Yaw Owusu & Arthur Sweetman, 2013. "The international migration of health professionals," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 4, pages 75-97, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Avato, Johanna, 2009. "Migration pressures and immigration policies : new evidence on the selection of migrants," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 52449, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Satish Chand & Michael Clemens & Helen Dempster, 2022. "Wage arbitrage through skilled emigration: Evidence from the Pacific Islands," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 430-446, September.
    2. Paolo Abarcar & Caroline Theoharides, 2024. "Medical Worker Migration and Origin-Country Human Capital: Evidence from U.S. Visa Policy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(1), pages 20-35, January.
    3. Michael A. Clemens & Colum Graham & Stephen Howes, 2015. "Skill Development and Regional Mobility: Lessons from the Australia-Pacific Technical College," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(11), pages 1502-1517, November.
    4. Jaschke, Philipp & Keita, Sekou, 2021. "Say it like Goethe: Language learning facilities abroad and the self-selection of immigrants," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    5. ADBI, Asian Development Bank Institute & OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developmen (ed.), 2020. "Innovative Approaches for the Management of Labor Migration in Asia," ADBI Books, Asian Development Bank Institute, number 13, Décembre.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fanti, Lucrezia & Pereira, Marcelo C. & Virgillito, Maria Enrica, 2023. "The North-South divide: Sources of divergence, policies for convergence," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 405-429.
    2. Okeke, Edward N., 2013. "Brain drain: Do economic conditions “push” doctors out of developing countries?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 169-178.
    3. Antwi, James & Phillips, David C., 2013. "Wages and health worker retention: Evidence from public sector wage reforms in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 101-115.
    4. Fanyu Chen & Zi Wen Vivien Wong & Siong Hook Law, 2024. "Brain drain: what is the role of institutions?," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 51(3), pages 605-628, September.
    5. Driouchi, Ahmed, 2014. "Evidence and Prospects of Shortage and Mobility of Medical Doctors: A Literature Survey," MPRA Paper 59322, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr, 2018. "Global Collaborative Patents," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 235-272, July.
    7. Michael Clemens, 2014. "A Case against Taxes and Quotas on High-Skill Emigration - Working Paper 363," Working Papers 363, Center for Global Development.
    8. Kelly Jones, 2014. "Growing Up Together: Cohort Composition and Child Investment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(1), pages 229-255, February.
    9. Carren Ginsburg & Philippe Bocquier & Donatien Beguy & Sulaimon Afolabi & Orvalho Augusto & Karim Derra & Frank Odhiambo & Mark Otiende & Abdramane B. Soura & Pascal Zabre & Michael White & Mark Colli, 2016. "Human capital on the move: Education as a determinant of internal migration in selected INDEPTH surveillance populations in Africa," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 34(30), pages 845-884.
    10. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_003 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Dambar Uprety, 2019. "Skilled migration and health outcomes in developing countries," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-14, March.
    12. Michael A. Clemens, 2014. "Does development reduce migration?," Chapters, in: Robert E.B. Lucas (ed.), International Handbook on Migration and Economic Development, chapter 6, pages 152-185, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. John Gibson & David McKenzie, 2011. "Eight Questions about Brain Drain," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 107-128, Summer.
    14. Anzelika Zaiceva, 2014. "The impact of aging on the scale of migration," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-99, November.
    15. Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr, 2018. "Global Collaborative Patents," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(612), pages 235-272, July.
    16. Nusrat Mahnoor & Yasmin Bushra, 2022. "Reinforcing Effect of Terrorism and Corruption Nexus on Net Migration from Developing Countries: An Empirical Analysis," Zagreb International Review of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 25(2), pages 65-83.
    17. Michael Clemens, 2010. "A Labor Mobility Agenda for Development," Working Papers 201, Center for Global Development.
    18. Jansson, Olle, 2017. "Organized interests and foreign-educated professionals: The case of the associations for physicians and nurses in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2017:18, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    19. Zaiceva, A. & Zimmermann, K.F., 2016. "Migration and the Demographic Shift," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 119-177, Elsevier.
    20. C. Fritz Foley & William R. Kerr, 2013. "Ethnic Innovation and U.S. Multinational Firm Activity," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1529-1544, July.
    21. Kristina A. Schapiro, 2009. "Migration and Educational Outcomes of Children," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-57, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Oct 2009.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cgd:ppaper:40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Publications Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cgdevus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.