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The study aims to investigate the impact of highly skilled emigration from Greece on the innovation performance of the Greek economy.

The study draws on a new, census-scale, database that includes all the Greek Ph.D. holders and on statistical information pooled from various secondary sources.

The mass emigration of highly educated Greek scientists that was exacerbated during the ten-year recession has had detrimental effects on Greece's innovation performance. Specifically, an increase in the number of highly skilled emigrants has a negative impact on scientific citations and on patent applications during the following year. An instrumental variable approach based on gravity model literature is employed to test the authors’ findings. The potential effects of these findings and policy suggestions are also discussed.

The study enriches the academic and policy discussion on the science and technology–related consequences of brain drain on the origin country. This is the first study that focuses on Greece – the country which experienced the highest emigration rates within the EU during the severe ten-year economic crisis – and sheds light on the impact of skilled emigration on its innovation performance.

The study examines potential differences in socioeconomic status (SES) and emigration patterns between Greek international students (IS) and non-international students (non-IS) and their relationship to the brain drain from Greece.

The study draws on a unique database including all the Greek PhD holders and provides detailed information on their SES and mobility patterns. Furthermore, an individual-level SES index is constructed including both human capital and socioeconomic indicators to estimate the magnitude of the brain drain in terms of the SES that emigrated abroad between 1,985 and 2,018.

First, Greek IS have a higher educational, professional and economic status compared to Greek non-IS. Moreover, they exhibit a more international profile, inasmuch as they are more likely to remain abroad after graduation to seek employment. Second, the magnitude of the brain drain in terms of SES emigrated abroad (22.5% of the total) is greater than in terms of individuals who moved abroad (13.4% of the total). Specifically, the SES that outflows with an additional Greek skilled emigrant (that is, an additional IS and non-IS residing abroad) is 1.1 times greater than the SES that remains in Greece with an additional non-IS residing in Greece.

The study contributes to the scientific discussion that relates the SES of IS and highly skilled migrants to brain drain and fills the gap in the relevant literature.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0607.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the preconditions for an upward economic mobility in time of immigrants working in agriculture. It argues this through an analysis of immigrants in the Greek countryside and a comparison of their performance to immigrants working in rural areas of other major host countries, for which the research has shown stagnant or even deteriorating economic conditions over time.

Field research in two Northern Greek rural prefectures between May 2007 and January 2008. Use of questionnaires addressed to 165 immigrants and 40 key‐informants.

The immigrants' ability to improve their economic conditions stems mainly from three labour market characteristics which differentiate the Greek countryside from other major host countries' rural areas. The first is the interpersonal relation of mutual trust that is built between immigrants and farmers. This relationship provides immigrants with a steady employment and allows them to develop strategies to increase their income by either working within or outside agriculture. The second is the lack of intermediaries in the labour market which allows immigrants to freely negotiate their wages, to move from agriculture to non‐agricultural jobs, and thus to achieve upward occupational mobility. The third is the lack of competition between old and new immigrants, which does not negatively affect their day wages. Therefore, we conclude that the structural differences in the agricultural labour markets of different countries lead to different opportunities of immigrants' economic improvement.

Fills the major gap in the European and Greek literature of immigrants in the countryside and especially their socioeconomic mobility over time.