ABSTRACT
The moral implications of brain drain depend on empirical claims about human capital, development, and the delivery of vital services, and on moral claims about the sources of obligation. Theorists who support policies to mitigate brain drain accept the empirical claim that if fewer skilled migrants had migrated, then some people in the sending country would be better off than they are. If it turns out that migration almost always has positive or neutral effects for developing regions through remittances, return migration, technology transfer, or by causing people who ultimately choose not to migrate to acquire new skills, then brain drain is a topic of limited normative interest. Pessimists about the effects of skilled migration also make a moral claim that the fact that some people in the sending country are worse off entails moral obligations for the emigrants, citizens of receiving countries, and/or officials in sending countries.
