The interregional migration of human capital and its regional consequences: a review

The interregional migration of human capital and its regional consequences: a review. Regional Studies. This paper reviews the literature on high human capital interregional migration with particular attention paid to the consequences of inflows and outflows on local economies. While other reviews focusing on the determinants of high-skilled interregional migration flows exist, this is the first attempt to organize and examine the extensive literature on the consequences of such flows on the economies of both receiving and sending regions as well as on the overall system. It is found that the majority of existing contributions focus on economic consequences for destination regions and highlight the strong need for future research that explores impacts on origin regions. In the critical assessment of the state-of-the-art, it is observed that lack of availability of suitable data on migration and migrant characteristics hinders the advancement of high-skilled migration research. The review also stresses the necessity of incorporating innovation, skill composition and gender in future analyses of impacts of high-skilled migration. It concludes with suggestions for novel avenues that researchers can exploit when pursuing future research on the consequences of high human capital interregional migration.