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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.

This paper is concerned with the effects of internationalisation on SMEs in countries that are becoming increasingly affected by market integration at a time when their economic structures are going through a process of radical transformation. Empirical data are drawn from recent surveys of SME managers in the food and clothing industries in Poland, Bulgaria and the Baltic States, which is compared with the results of similar surveys in the UK and Greece. The results show that the ability of SMEs in transition countries to compete in foreign and domestic markets, varies between sectors. In food processing, although some SMEs have been able to penetrate foreign markets, the main effect so far has been to increase the level of competition in domestic markets. The evidence shows that foreign market penetration by food processing SMEs in transition countries is often focused on markets in other transition countries rather than in Western markets. In the clothing industry, the effects of internationalisation are different because of the highly internationalised nature of the clothing market and the production system that supplies it. In this context, SMEs in countries such as Poland and Estonia particularly, have been able to attract subcontract type work from Western countries, based on their relatively low labour costs. However, as the Greek experience demonstrates, this type of production can be very volatile, disappearing almost as quickly as it is secured. Despite detailed differences between countries and between sectors, the evidence shows that in all the Central and East European countires (CEECs) featuring in the study, some SMEs in the emerging private sector are responding to new foreign market opportunities and, in the short term at least, managing to achieve competitiveness. However, there is also evidence that their current basis of competitiveness in foreign markets contains weaknesses which may affect their ability to sustain their export effort in the longer term. As far as SME managers in transition countries are concerned, the main priorities for government action to improve their ability to increase foreign market sales are assistance with export promotion and a reduction in the level of domestic taxation. The survey results show that although a significant minority of exporters in transition countries had been using external assistance to support their export effort, this was typically either on a fully paid for basis from consultants or informally from other firms or business associates rather than from trade organisations or formal business support organisations.