Wage effects of high-skilled migration : international evidence

This paper argues that international migration of high-skilled workers triggers productivity effects at the macro level such that the wage rate of skilled workers may well rise in host countries and decline in source countries. We exploit a recent data set on international bilateral migration flows and provide evidence which is consistent with this hypothesis. In order to identify the causal effect of migration on wages, we propose different instrumentation strategies which address the endogeneity problem arising from the fact that international wage differences affect migration decisions.