The Economic Impact of Medical Migration:
an Overview of the Literature
Martine Rutten
August 2007
IIDE discussion paper 200708-03
This paper provides an overview of the evidence and applied literature on medical migration. Since migration of health workers influences the provision of health services, or put differently since an expansion of health provision in the short-run is often only possible via the importation of health workers, and impacts upon the well-being of the population, the paper includes a survey of applied macroeconomic
models on changes in health and/or health care provision. The general equilibrium economic impacts of endogenous changes in health provision on the health of the population, well-being and effective labour supplies are relatively little researched in the literature. Receiving even less attention is medical brain drain, a process likely to have associated adverse (positive) health and welfare consequences for developing source (developed destination) countries.
JEL codes: F22, I1
Key words: medical migration, brain drain, doctor migration, nurse migration
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