Michael Clemens
MPI Authors
Michael Clemens
Michael Clemens is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) where he leads the Migration and Development initiative. His research focuses on the effects of international migration on people from and in developing countries, and on rigorous impact evaluation for aid projects. He also serves as CGD’s Research Manager, directing the Center’s engagement with the academic research community through peer-review for Center publications, research seminars and conferences, and academic fellowship positions.
Dr. Clemens joined CGD after completing his PhD in economics at Harvard University, where his fields were economic development and public finance, and he wrote his dissertation in economic history. He has served as an Affiliated Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a Visiting Scholar at New York University, and as a Consultant for the World Bank, Bain & Co., the Environmental Defense Fund, and the United Nations Development Program. In 2013 one of his articles received the Royal Economic Society prize.
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Policy Briefs
September 2013
Skilled migration is often thought to have overwhelmingly negative effects on countries of migrant origin. Yet recent research and policy experience challenge this assumption and offer a more nuanced picture, as this brief explains. Countries of origin and destination can in fact benefit from skilled migration when it is correctly structured, and efforts to restrict skilled nationals’ ability to leave their countries of origin may have unintended costs, in addition to being ethically problematic.