This book examines the trends, determinants, and impacts of migration of high-skilled workers within the European Union (EU) over the last two decades. The main thesis is that high-skilled migration, whether internal or international, is largely a symptom rather than a cause of the gaps persisting across European regions in terms of labor market and educational opportunities, productivity, welfare and quality of institutions. Free movement within the EU enables workers and firms to take advantage of these gaps by moving from low- to high-productivity sectors and regions. This process, however, generates winners and losers depending on the extent of the complementarity and substitutability between migrants and natives and on the capacity of sending regions to realize benefits from return or circular migration and other knowledge spillovers. The study assesses the economic benefits and the costs of skilled migration in the short and long run, emphasizing the potential implications of a large outflow of highly q
