Dany Bahar

Migration, Knowledge Diffusion and the Comparative Advantage of Nations

To what extent are migrants a source of evolution of the comparative advantage of both their sending and receiving countries? Dany Bahar and Hillel Rapoport have studied the drivers of knowledge diffusion by looking at the dynamics of the export basket of countries. Their main finding is that migration is a strong and robust driver of productive knowledge diffusion. In terms of the ability to induce exports, they determined that an increase of only 65,000 people in the stock of migrants for the average country is associated with a ca. 15% increase in the likelihood of adding a new product to a country’s export basket. They also found that, in terms of expanding the export basket of countries, a migrant is worth about $30,000 of foreign direct investment. For skilled migrants these same figures become 15,000 people and $160,000.

Mr Bahar’s research sits at the intersection of international economics and economic development. In particular, his academic research focuses on structural transformation and productivity dynamics, and how they are affected by factors such as migration, innovation, trade, investment, entrepreneurship and the diffusion of technology within and across borders. His expertise on policy issues includes international trade, migration and globalisation more generally, as well as the understanding of economic trends in the global economy and in particular regions.

Dany Bahar is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. An Israeli and Venezuelan economist, he is also an Associate at the Harvard Center for International Development. He has worked and consulted for multilateral development organisations such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. His academic work has been published in top economic journals. Mr Bahar holds a BA in systems engineering from Universidad Metropolitana (Caracas, Venezuela), an MA in economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an MPA in international development from Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD in public policy from Harvard University.