Brain Drain from Developing Countries to OECD Based on Gravity Model

Brain drain as a migration of skilled and educated labor out of developing countries has been an important issue from centuries ago. In this study, we investigated the causes of brain drain from 30 developing countries to 16 other countries which are the members of OECD based on gravity model from 1991- 2004. The result shows that the brain drain phenomenon is explainable based on gravity model. There are some effective pull and push factors in the source in the target countries such as difference in population, various condition of labor market like the amount of wages and unemployment, quality of life, social welfare, subsidies of education and participation of private sector in developing and OECD countries which are among the main causes of brain drain.