The Effect of High Technology Export Development on Brain Drain in Selected Middle Eastern and North African Countries (MENA)

Brain drain is one of the challenges facing many countries that are facing with that many countries and from it get memory to as a traumatic event in countries.Therefore, the assessment of the causes of brain drain is necessary and inevitable. One of the issues that can affect the flow of elites from developing countries is the high technology export development. Because the demand for specialized and educated labor increases with increasing exports of high-tech products and prevents from the exit of the scientific elite. Therefore, the main purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of high technology export development on brain drain from the selected countries of the MENA region to the United States during the period 2000-2016 using the generalized-moments method (GMM). The results of the study showed that there is a negative and significant effect between high technology export development index and brain drain in selected countries of the MENA region. Also, there is a positive and significant relation between indicators of welfare gap and the actual wage gap and brain drain in selected countries of the MENA region. Unemployment rate of graduates has also a positive and meaningless effect on brain drain.
JEL Classification: F22, F40, O31, C33.