Resumen

The demand for highly skilled labor exceeds its supply in most developed economies. As the domestic supply of such labor is likely inelastic in the short and medium term, immigration can help to meet the demand. However, firms are often unable to attract sufficient highly skilled labor, partly due to difficulties hiring foreign workers. This inability could be due to insufficient demand from highly skilled individuals to immigrate or an insufficient supply of visas to allow those wanting to immigrate to do so. Immigration is a highly salient political issue. While the focus has primarily been on the publics' attitudes towards immigrants and their effect on migration policy, their attitudes might also affect the preferences of potential emigrants. Political populism and anti-immigrant sentiment in the destination country may deter high-skilled migrants that have a greater choice over their emigration destination. We examine the migration preferences of potential high skilled immigrants to Australia, the UK, the USA, and Canada to determine whether the decision to emigrate is driven by primarily economic or political considerations. We conduct a conjoint survey experiment drawing from the CESS student subject pools in Chile, China, India, and the UK to identify causal drivers of emigration preferences. China and India have existing patterns of high skilled migration to the UK and the USA; Canada has been a popular destination country for Chilean emigrants; and high skilled UK emigrants have historically migrated to the USA. Our findings indicate that both politics and economics matter. In a post-Brexit Britain, these findings are directly relevant for understanding how the UK might look to attract high-skilled immigrants from beyond Europe.

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