NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Bidding for Brains: Intellectual Property Rights and the International Migration of Knowledge Workers

Carol McAusland, Peter J. Kuhn

NBER Working Paper No. 15486*
Issued in November 2009
NBER Program(s):   ITI    LS    PR

We introduce international mobility of knowledge workers into a model of Nash equilibrium IPR policy choice among countries. We show that governments have incentives to use IPRs in a bidding war for global talent, resulting in Nash equilibrium IPRs that can be too high, rather than too low, from a global welfare perspective. These incentives become stronger as developing countries grow in size and wealth, thus allowing them to prevent the 'poaching' of their 'brains' by larger, wealthier markets.

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