Brain drain - the size of the cup matters

Chad's response to this week's Ask a Science Blogger pointed to two issues which I think need some clarification. First, that brain drain might be good for the species in that it distributes the "wealth" of human capital around. This is not a trivial or baseless argument, but, The World Bank has done a study, and it is important to note that the impact of the "brain drain" on "donor" nations differs as a function of size. In other words, nations like China and India lose a relatively small percentage of their intellectual capital, while nations like Guyana lose a lot. So the key is whether it is a bad thing that the Guyanas of the world lose their educated classes. One could assume that for the Guyanas it is plainly obvious this is a bad thing, but that assumes that staying home is economically productive, the reality is that ...