Skilled migration and human capital: new insights from a panel database.

Summary This thesis develops and uses a new panel database compiling stocks and rates of emigration to the 6 main OECD receiving countries, by level of education for 172 countries of origin, between 1975 and 2000. Using this new database, we show that skilled migration has indeed increased over the last 30 years, but that this phenomenon is part of a global increase in mobility and a general increase in skill levels. This database also allows us to observe that, contrary to what is emphasized in the traditional literature, significant inequalities in migrants' countries of origin generate an increase in skilled emigration relative to unskilled emigration. Moreover, this basis allows us to demonstrate that a gain from emigration is possible in the poorest countries of origin, provided that skilled emigration rates are not too high. From this point of view, the projections of "brain drain" rates by 2050 show us that an increase in "selected" immigration policies in the main European receiving countries could be extremely harmful for the migrants' sending countries.