Highly-skilled workers play a central role in today’s knowledge economy. The global war for talents is intensifying. With the increasing anti-immigrant sentiments in recent years, not only does Europe gradually lose attractiveness to highly-skilled migrants, but also its ability to retain those who have already migrated. Most of the highly-skilled migrants are temporary (< 5 years) rather than permanent. Governments in Europe struggle to maintain the country’s economic competitiveness. With many policy options available, what is the most suitable and efficient policy to maximize the economic contribution of highly-skilled migrants?

This PhD project aims to fill in the research gap on the temporary feature of highly-skilled migrants and provide solid empirical evidences for migration policy making with rich administrative microdata from Statistics Netherlands, Turkish Statistical institute, and National Bureau of Statistics of China. Our primary research question is to investigate whether former employer(s) in the host country can still reap benefit from knowledge diffusion of highly-skilled migrants after they leave the host country. We are going to look into a wide range of firm-level outcomes on production upgrading domestically and on trade/ offshoring internationally. We will also be interested in how the home country and the third country of destination possibly benefit from the circulation of the highly-skilled migrants.

Job description
Highly-skilled workers play a central role in today’s knowledge economy. Many countries put in substantial policy efforts to attract them. Highly-skilled migrants are mobile and very concentrated in space (Kerr et al 2016). Europe, apparently is not the best player on the field. With the increasing anti-immigrant sentiments in recent years, not only does Europe gradually lose attractiveness to highly-skilled migrants, but also its ability to retain those who have already migrated. In the Netherlands, one of the most developed and popular destinations in Europe, about 80% of migrants under the highly skilled migrants scheme are temporary migrants rather than permanent. They stayed less than 5 years even though the tax exemption can be valid up to 8 years and even though they are immediately eligible to apply for a permanent residence after 5 years upon arrival.

The global war for talents is intensifying. Governments in Europe struggle to maintain the country’s economic competitiveness. With many policy options available, what is the most suitable and efficient policy to maximize the economic contribution of highly-skilled migrants? First, policies such as a favorable tax reduction and providing better international infrastructure aim to increase the country’s overall attractiveness to highly-skilled migrants worldwide so that they are more willing to come. Second, citizenship policies such as lowering requirements of local language proficiency in becoming permanent migrants or naturalized aim to provide a smooth path for highly-skilled migrants already in the host country to permanent residents. These two sets of policy actions are frequently implemented and are quite well-understood in literature (see, e.g. Kleven et al 2014; Gathmann and Garbers 2023).

Third, a new direction of policies should consider how to best make the full potential of temporary highly-skilled migrants. The temporary feature of migration itself, is fundamentally different from permanent migration in economic behaviors. Therefore, the omission of the difference might imply incorrect policy advises (Dustmann and Görlach 2016). Developing more short-stay or temporary working programs for highly-skilled migrants and strengthening post-emigration networks might efficiently boost brain circulation. For example, if several software engineers from India come to work in the Netherlands for 3 months on a temporary working program and move to Silicon Valley in the US later on, it can be beneficial for the Dutch firm if it can maintain this high-quality relation and potentially could upgrade its products and the global strategy in the future. Despite these hypothesized advantages, the policy actions of facilitating brain circulation via temporary highly-skilled migrants is very little understood due to the constraints of data availability tracking migrants across national borders (Bossavie et al 2022).

This PhD project aims to fill in the research gap on the temporary feature of highly-skilled migrants and provide solid empirical evidences for migration policy making with rich administrative microdata from Statistics Netherlands, Turkish Statistical institute, and National Bureau of Statistics of China. The focus will be on the firms that have ever hired highly-skilled migrants and on the period of post-emigration out of the host country. The heterogeneity of emigrants who return to the home country and emigrants who migrate to a third country as destination will be distinguished.

Our primary research question is to investigate whether former employer(s) in the host country can still reap benefit from knowledge diffusion of highly-skilled migrants after they leave the host country. We will look into a wide range of firm-level outcomes on production upgrading domestically and on trade/ offshoring internationally. We will also be interested in how the home country and the third country of destination possibly benefit from the circulation of the highly-skilled migrants.

This PhD project relates to an emerging literature on the causal impact of policy change in temporary highly-skilled migrants visas on firm performances (Glennon 2023; Doran et al 2022; Chen et al 2021), and provide a new perspective of boosting brain circulation to the strand of literature on cross-border knowledge diffusion of migrants (Bahar et al 2022; Di Iasio and Migueliz 2022). The research outcomes are highly relevant to multiple stakeholders including migrants, firms and government.

Expected output
The expected output of this project will generate 3 working paper which has the potentials to be in general-interest economic/management journals such as Review of Economics and Statistics, Economic Journal, and Management Science. In the meantime, to ensure a wider audience through internet, a summary of the results will be appearing as policy briefs in websites such as voxeu.org, edited by Center for Economic Policy Research. We will use our social media accounts, as well as the School’s as an active outlet for the research results to get higher exposure.

We welcome PhD candidates who aspire a career in research. To become one of our PhD candidates, you will need to be admitted to Erasmus School of Economics' graduate schools, the Tinbergen Institute or the Erasmus Research Institute in Management (ERIM).

Erasmus School of Economics’ admission requirements are:

• MPhil or Research Master’s degree in Economics, Econometrics, Mathematics or Physics is preferred. Please upload your bachelor’s and master’s degree.
  
  • Candidates with an MSc or MA degree are required to successfully complete 1 year of courses at the graduate school they are part of (Research Qualifications at the Tinbergen Institute or courses at ERIM)
• Excellent study results for both the bachelor’s and master’s degree. Please upload your transcript of records for the bachelor’s and master’s degree.
• Interest in and strong motivation for scientific research explained in a statement of purpose.
• GRE test is required for all entering PhD students. Valid GRE (revised) General Test results are required from all PhD applicants (all 3 sections: Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning and Analytical Writing). Successful applicants typically perform among the top-10% of test-takers on the quantitative part of the GRE; applicants with a Q score below 160 will not be considered. The results should not be older than 5 years.
• Excellent command of English. Applicants whose native language is not English are therefore required to demonstrate English proficiency by:
  
  • proof that the language of instruction of their entire university education (bachelor and master programme) was English, or
  • scoring at least 100 on the TOEFL iBT test or 7.5 on the IELTS test.
• Two (academic) reference letters, preferably from a thesis supervisor or research project supervisor
• Curriculum Vitae

In addition to the general requirements, this PhD project expects you to have:

• Demonstrable research experience, for example, in the form of a research assistantship or an excellent empirical research-based thesis.
• Skills to work with big data.
• Dutch language proficiency of the candidate is preferred, but not strictly required.

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).

The start date of this position is 01-09-2024 and you will be based at Campus Woudestein in Erasmus School of Economics (ESE). This position is for 1 fte - 1 fte FTE. The salary is dependent on your experience and knowledge and ranges from a minimum of € 2.770 to a maximum of € 3.539 gross per month (Scale PhD) on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU.

Everything else we offer you, you can find below!

• Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre!
• Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME, QuEUR, or Young Erasmus Academy.
• Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget, foreign exchange opportunities with most costs paid by EUR, and free access to our university library.
• Good pension with ABP that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards, discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.
• Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare.
• Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 3.700 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service
Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) is a leading school in economics in the Netherlands. It has a strong international reputation and aims to do outstanding research. Moreover, it provides excellent education at the BA., MA. and Ph.D. levels. Much research at Erasmus School of Economics is policy relevant, has social impact, and offers a strong research culture, ample research resources, and comparatively low teaching loads.
www.eur.nl/en/ese