Diaspora Networks, Knowledge Flows and Brain Drain

The paper summarizes key findings from the literature on how distance, relationships and ethnic ties influence knowledge flows, and describes a model that relates emigration and the diaspora to knowledge flows. It recaps a key study that reports evidence of a link from the diaspora and knowledge flows to home country manufacturing productivity. The study summarizes the ways in which intellectual property (IP) protection may influence knowledge flow patterns through incentives (market for ideas) and disincentives (anticommons). Finally, it speculates on how diaspora knowledge flows and IP may alleviate developing country low-productivity equilibria (“poverty traps”) caused by an underinvestment in specialized human capital.