There is a dearth of research on migrant entrepreneurship in the context of contemporary UK policy. At the same time, there is evidence of burgeoning transnational socio cultural connectivity. This thesis evaluates the impact of these conditions on migrant entrepreneurship in a rapidly changing policy environment. Migrant entrepreneurship is viewed differently in academia, policy and public perception. This causes significant policy tensions and disjunctions that are manifest a migration policy system which fails to take into account the agency of migrant entrepreneurs. In a break from previous studies, the migrant entrepreneur s negotiations of power and agency that stem from transnational connections in a contemporary UK context will be addressed. It is important to acknowledge structures of migration policy and economic landscape at national, regional and local scales. Three areas of the UK are addressed; London, focusing on Inner London East, Birmingham and the West Midlands and Cambridgeshire.

With the rise of the knowledge economy and aging population, advanced industrial countries seek to address their skill shortage and promote national skill bases through highly skilled migration. As a result, recruiting international students, especially those at tertiary levels, has been integrated into national strategies to compete for global talent. In spite of the widely recognized significance of recruiting international students to a high skill economy, the uneven growth in foreign enrolments among host countries, geographically oriented source regions and destinations of the students, and limited post-graduate stay rates suggest important questions about governments commitment to attracting and retaining international students. A main purpose of this comparative study is to identify and assess specific national strategies and their goals of managing international student mobility. Changes in international student policies, in particular entry and immigration regulations, and the trends in student mobility in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom since the 1990s are examined drawing on secondary data. The results suggest that rather than strictly relying on market forces, nation states address and cope with the pressure point of skill upgrading in a strategic and political way. The management of international student mobility, among other national strategies aiming at a high skill society embraces a collective goal of national interest shaped by the political economy in each nation.

With the rise of the knowledge economy and aging population, advanced industrial countries seek to address their skill shortage and promote national skill bases through highly skilled migration. As a result, recruiting international students, especially those at tertiary levels, has been integrated into national strategies to compete for global talent. In spite of the widely recognized significance of recruiting international students to a high skill economy, the uneven growth in foreign enrolments among host countries, geographically oriented source regions and destinations of the students, and limited post-graduate stay rates suggest important questions about governments commitment to attracting and retaining international students. A main purpose of this comparative study is to identify and assess specific national strategies and their goals of managing international student mobility. Changes in international student policies, in particular entry and immigration regulations, and the trends in student mobility in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom since the 1990s are examined drawing on secondary data. The results suggest that rather than strictly relying on market forces, nation states address and cope with the pressure point of skill upgrading in a strategic and political way. The management of international student mobility, among other national strategies aiming at a high skill society embraces a collective goal of national interest shaped by the political economy in each nation.

<p>This thesis focuses on the widely acknowledged so-called brain drain controversy. More concretely on developments in the traditional brain drain literature towards a new shift, claiming the brain gain effect, as an alternative to the brain drain effect, that emigration may bring to a source country. The research investigates not only the obvious direct loss effects – the so called brain drain – but also the possibility of more subtle indirect beneficial effects.</p>

Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

Chapter 1 Low-skilled Migration and Altruism: Population ageing has become a common concern among welfare states, including Canada and most of the OECD countries. Immigration has been identified as a solution to help sustain labour-force growth in industrialized countries, and as the factor most able to mitigate dire predictions of future fiscal imbalances. This chapter examines the impact of low-skilled immigration in a host country where households are altruists with a pay-as-you-go pension system to support the elderly. It demonstrates that low-skilled immigration does not harm the welfare of the domestic population. We use an overlapping-generations model similar to the work of Razin and Sadka (2000) but introduce paternalistic altruism into the life-cycle framework. Within this context of inter-generational altruism and pay-as-you-go pension systems, the initial negative fiscal impact of low-skilled migrants is compensated, thus, all income groups (high and low) and all age groups (young and old) benefit from migration. // Chapter 2 Growth and Sustainability: In light of the major environmental issues experienced by several countries in the last decades, several papers have advocated the rethinking of the role of governments in environmental preservation. This chapter develops an overlapping-generations model of environmental quality and production and investigates the potential role of governmental participation in the preservation of the quality of the environment so as to achieve both economic growth and environmental sustainability. The analysis suggests that long term economic growth and environment sustainability can be maintained with tax-funded environmental programs in a context of a negative production externality on the quality of the environment. // Chapter 3 The Incidence of Geography on Canada’s Services Trade: We estimate geographic barriers to export trade in nine service categories for Canada's provinces from 1997 to 2007 using the structural gravity model. Constructed Home, Domestic and Foreign Bias indexes capture the direct plus indirect effect of services trade costs on intra-provincial, inter-provincial and international trade relative to their frictionless benchmarks. Barriers to services international trade are huge relative to inter-provincial trade and large relative to goods international trade. A novel test confirms the fit of structural gravity with services trade data.

The ‘race for talent’ on the global labor market is an increasingly discussed subject amongst EU policymakers. Skilled migration schemes have therefore been on the rise. By using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), the paper analyses 12 documents published by the EU between 2009 and 2021 regarding skilled migration. The theoretical framework the discussion is entrenched in is the ethical political spectrum reaching over political idealism and realism. Within the EU, migration policy is described to have an idealist character, with free movement and clear democratic values. Towards its neighboring countries, it is less clear where the EU stands in terms thereof. Dissecting EU skilled migration schemes and discourse hopes to locate EU foreign policy on that spectrum more clearly. An additional question to this main research topic is whether the EU adjusts its migration policies according to the governments of the countries of origin. As two increasingly important countries of origin for skilled migrants, the examples of Tunisia and Egypt were chosen. The analysis exemplifies thereby the EU’s approach to a democratic and an authoritarian government. The selection of the documents was therefore guided by their link to those countries.The study found that though the EU does not overtly discriminate against non-democratic forms of government in the context of skilled migration, they nonetheless organize their relations with third countries in a hierarchical manner. This entails certain privileges for countries committed to democratic values. Moreover, the EU skilled migration policy is found to be neither distinctly realist nor idealist. Instead, an overview of the different components of EU skilled migration policy and places them on the political ethical spectrum is provided.

My thesis The Benefits of Loss: Life Strategies and Negotiations of Identity amongst Indian Transmigrants in Melbourne, Australia is a study of a community of transmigrants of prevailingly Indian origin who immigrated to Melbourne Australia. The majority of these persons came to Australia on overseas student visas in order to pursue a university education; this later created an opportunity for them to obtain permanent residency in Australia through The General Skilled Migration program. This specific migration flow of persons with high skill and education has been supported by the Australian government in the last decade as a reaction to the increased mobility of population in the globalized world. The study focuses on the life strategies and negotiations of particular individuals attempting to show how these global trends are mediated in specific stages of their lives. At the centre of my interest lies a social network of 14 friends who constitute a transnational community in Melbourne, their motivations of migration, the stories capturing their experiences of the migration process, life strategies in the territory of a foreign nation-state and everyday negotiations of both individual and collective identity.

The significance of flows of temporary, skilled labour migrants under conditions of globalization is widely acknowledged. Using a case study of elite cricket professionals moving from the UK to Australia for a maximum duration of 6 months, out and return migration flows and processes are examined. In doing so, this thesis exposes migration motives, notably in relation to career progression and personal development, and the processes and regulations that control temporary sojourns. Furthermore, the discussion reveals important social, cultural, economic and familial impacts of undertaking temporary, skilled, international migration. Using this case study of a sport-led migration, a largely under-researched occupational sector in migration studies, a number of theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions are provided, which advance knowledge of skilled, international migration. First, utilising Bourdieu's (1986) notions of capital as an analytical framework, the comparative importance of migration motives are emphasised. Second, it is shown that migration can be viewed as a normalised aspect of a skilled worker's career trajectory, and that desired outcomes can be achieved during increasingly temporary stays overseas. Third, a three phase model of the migration flow is adopted to enable the development of professionalization and migration within cricket to be examined. It is asserted that cricket, as a professional sport, has changed under conditions of globalization, alongside smaller scale developments initiated by both employers and intermediaries, and the migrant cricketers. It is concluded that these connections will have salience for the other skilled occupations identified in Salt's (1997) typology of highly-skilled migrants.