Bidding for Brains: Intellectual Property Rights and the International Migration of Knowledge Workers
We introduce international mobility of knowledge workers into a model of Nash equilibrium IPR policy choice among countries. We show that governments have incentives to use IPRs in a bidding war for global talent, resulting in Nash equilibrium IPRs that can be too high, rather than too low, from a global welfare perspective. These incentives become stronger as developing countries grow in size and wealth, thus allowing them to prevent the 'poaching' of their 'brains' by larger, wealthier markets.
Published Versions
McAusland, Carol & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Bidding for brains: Intellectual property rights and the international migration of knowledge workers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 77-87, May. citation courtesy of 
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