Give us your best and brightest: the global hunt for talent and its impact on the developing world

International migration is a development issue. In the last half-century, cross-border trade and financial flows transformed the global economic and political landscape and created new opportunities and new challenges for the developing world. In this century, cross-border flows of people - whether as permanent migrants or temporary workers, and irrespective of legal status - are bound to be equally transformative.

This book is about one aspect of this phenomenon - the movement from poor to rich countries of people with skills: the once-named 'brain drain'. The economic and social consequences of substantial immigrant inflows for the receiving countries have prompted considerable debate and analysis. The welfare and human rights of migrants - whether their movement is provoked by income gaps, ethnic cleansing, economic instability, or human trafficking - is an issue attracting increasing international attention. This book addresses a third subject: how immigration policies of the rich countries matter to those nations sending immigrants.

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