The slowdown of Canada’s productivity growth and the widening gap between Canadian and U.S. per capita incomes in recent years has sparked renewed concerns about a brain drain of highly qualified individuals and entrepreneurs, says a study published today by the C.D. Howe Institute.

The study, a collection of essays entitled Brains on the Move — Essays on Human Capital Mobility in a Globalizing World and Implications for the Canadian Economy, was co-authored by Richard Harris, Stephen Easton and Nicolas Schmitt, with contributions by William Gibson, Dominique Gross and Antoine Soubeyran. It explores the implications of human capital mobility for the Canadian economy.

The study suggests that the prospect of an integrated North American labour market will become a matter of active policy debate, and one that will rival in intensity the 1980s free trade debate.