The Impact of Highly Skilled Returning Emigrants on the Origin Country’s Innovation Performance: Evidence from Greece

This study analyses the impact of highly skilledHighly skilled returning Greek emigrantsEmigrants on the innovationInnovation performance of the Greek economy. Using a new, census-scale database that includes all the Greek Ph.D. holdersPh.D., we find that highly skilledHighly skilled returning Greek emigrantsEmigrants have a small but statistically significant positive effect in the number of patent applications and scientific citations in GreeceGreece. That is, a slight brain gainBrain gain effect in terms of innovativeness is exhibited as a result of skilled returnees. We additionally discuss possible reasons for this positive, albeit slight, effect, as well as potential policy measures aimed at boosting return migration to GreeceGreece, tapping into the rich Greek human capitalCapital living abroad, and attracting foreign scientists. In order to address potential endogeneity issues, an instrumental variable approach based on climate changes indices is also adopted.