Skilled Migration and Human Capital Accumulation in Southern Italy

The demographic data indicate that the total number of migrants moving from the South of Italy to the Center and North has held basically constant in recent decades. However, the portion of the aggregate called “high-skilled” has been increasing. That is, the quality composition of migrant workers has undergone a radical change. Where in the early postwar decades migrants were mostly young people from the rural parts of the South, today increasing numbers of university graduates and students (enrolled in institutions outside their home regions) are leaving the peninsular and island regions of the South for the Center and North. The global literature on the measurement of the effects of such educated migration has examined the question from two opposing standpoints, among others: “brain drain” and “brain gain”. This paper contributes to the discussion on the measurement of the economic effects of high-skilled migration, focusing on the case of the Italian South. After setting out a general framework for measuring the economic effects of educated emigration, the paper presents the empirical findings on the impact on human capital accumulation.