Zoran Arandjelovič, PhD, Vladislav Marjanovič, PhD, Jelena Mladenovič, MSc
The Impact of Migrations on Macroeconomic Competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia
Scientific article UDC 331.55(497.11)
KEY WORDS: migration, "brain drain", competitiveness, strategy
ABSTRACT - Migrations are present in all countries in the world, both developed and developing. It can, either positively or negatively, affect the economic development of a national economy, especially its competitiveness. Accordingly, a special attention should be paid to the qualification structure of population and the ability of a country to create, retain and attract greater number of highly qualified workers. Unfortunately, a negligible number of countries persist in this very important goal that directly reflects in their low competitiveness. This paper will be exploring a low level of macroeconomic competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia, which is primarily determined by negative migration flows in the country and a permanent "brain drain". In the paper, there will be perceived an absence of strategic planning and inappropriate economic policy as key factors of such negative trend. Finally, the paper will give a set of recommendations how to stop negative demographic trends, and improve competitiveness in the future.
Znanstveni prispevek UDK 331.55(497.11)
KLJUČNE BESEDE: migracije, »beg možganov«, konkurenčnost, strategija
POVZETEK - Migracije so prisotne v vseh svetovnih državah, tako v razvitih in nerazvitih. Njihov vpliv na razvoj nacionalne ekonomije je lahko bodisi pozitiven, bodisi negativen, .še zlasti kar .se tiče njene konkurenčnosti. Zato je potrebno posebno pozornost usmeriti na kvalifikacijsko strukturo populacije in zmožnost države za ustvarjanje, ohranjanje in privabljanje številnih visokokvalificiranih delavcev. Žal, le zanemarljivo .število držav vztraja pri tem pomembnem cilju, kar se odraža pri njihovi nizki konkurenčnosti. Prispevek obravnava nizko stopnjo makroekonomske konkurenčnosti Republike Srbije, ki je primarno določena predvsem z negativnimi migracijskimi tokovi v državi in stalnim »begom možganov«. Moč je zaznati pomanjkanje strateškega načrtovanja in neprimerno ekonomsko politiko kot ključna dejavnika tovrstnega negativnega trenda. V zaključku prispevka navajamo vrsto priporočil, kako ustaviti negativne demografske trende in izboljšati makroekonomsko konkurenčnost v prihodnosti.
1 Introduction
The causes for migrations can be various: natural, social, economic. The paper primarily refers to issues related to education and employment as the crucial motivators of development. In the scenario of progressive economic policy and valuation of education, the scientific potentials and labour rights act as the fostering power of economic development, and from the aspect of migrations, they are a precondition for immigrations. On the contrary, the policy of neglecting education, science and needs of young population, restrains the development of the society, and thus becomes one of elementary causes of emigrations. The most unfavourable form of emigration is the "brain drain". Dimensions of the negative consequences of this phenomenon can be indicated if we perceive that it takes away the intellectuals, social elite, the segment of society that should lead the country in favourable social and economic conditions, and be the source of innovations, the stronghold of its development in the highest stage
of competitiveness. With the drain of these experts, the country goes to the process of impoverishment that can be observed from two aspects: 1) the country loses its opportunity to turn the costs of education of experts into gain; 2) it loses the potential progress that these experts promise with their capacity.
Emigration trends with high share of "brain drain", experience their permanent expansion in Serbia, negatively reflecting on economic development, as well as on the competitiveness of the country. As a crucial incentive of negative migrations in Serbia, there has been noted a high unemployment rate with the high share of unemployed youth. The absence of national policy's measures for retention and attraction of educated people, i.e. inadequate implementation of these measures, causes a significant share of the highly educated among emigrants.
Firstly, the paper will focus on migrations in the Republic of Serbia, and on the factors that form them. The last part of the paper will be analysing the effect of labour force on the competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia that will clearly underline the intolerable low competitiveness of partial indicators, among which we emphasize the competence to attract and retain experts.
2 Migrations in the Republic of Serbia
Crucial demographic issues of Serbia and the surrounding countries originate from the previous decades (Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, 2014, p. 21). The demographic images of Serbia and other Southeast European countries have been changed during the last few decades, due to overall social and economic changes. The strongest feature of this new demographic image of this part of Europe is high average age of the population, and low, or negative natural growth. For some countries, this kind of state does not only represent a demographic issue, since migrations are frequently caused by ethnic characteristics.
Demographic regression is the feature that prevails in the Republic of Serbia in the last few decades. Three global demographic processes dominate: total depopulation (decrease in population), natural depopulation (number of deceased exceeding the number of newborns), and demographic aging (Republic Institute for Development, 2007, p. 7).
Besides natural growth, one of the key factors influencing demographic flows in the Republic of Serbia, are migrations. Due to armed conflicts at the end of the 20th century, political and economic instability, as well as international isolation from which the country was slowly recovering, emigration flows dominated in the structure of migrations. The ravages of war resulted in large inflow of refugees to Serbia during the 90's, but also in considerable emigration of the population to foreign countries. These latter flows, supported by low level of life standard, social and economic instability, have continued during the 21s' century.
Emigration, i.e. the act of leaving one's own country to reside in another, is a dominant migration flow in almost all developing countries. The opposite trend, immigration, prevails in developed countries, providing their own country the inflow of population from other countries. The goal of migration research in Serbia is to emphasize its intensity, negative forms, such as "brain drain", as well as the consequences of spreading such migration forms which have become increasingly serious for Serbia as their home country. Emigration of highly educated population reflects in the so-called "brain drain" and impoverishment of the country in terms of the human capital, which as an overall result may imply lower productivity and economic growth (Dayton-Johnson and others, 2009, p. 149).
On the decision of highly educated experts to emigrate to developed countries or stay in their home country after the completed studies, mostly affect the following factors: difference in the level of income, quality of life conditions, safety, opportunity to advance in their career, research content of the emigration country, opportunity to connect within the academic community, and size of the existing diaspora. On the contrary, the reasons that bring emigrants back to their home country are: family issues, cultural inclinations, desire to improve their home country (World Bank, 2008, p. 2). Some researches show that the key factor of motivation of the highly educated experts to leave the country is the "unstable economic situation combined with poor state government and corrupted oligarchic structure that tends to eliminate the ineligible elite. In the countries where the rule of law almost does not exist, incompetent and unqualified people have vast ambitions. Reasons for emigration become ethical" (Horvat, 2004).
"Brain drain" as a phenomenon became perceived in Serbia during the middle of the previous century, and the topic has become increasingly significant over time. The researches show that 40.000 highly educated people left the country in the middle of 70's. Between the years 1990 and 2000, about 73.000 citizens of Serbia and Montenegro emigrated, of whom 17.000 were highly educated. Most of them went to Germany (34%), Switzerland (12%) and Italy (6%) (Jackson, 2012, p. 75). After 2000, the country was left by more than 2.000 highly educated people, and it is assumed that the greatest number of them studied technical and natural science. In 2011, in comparison to 2010, the number of citizens of the Republic of Serbia in the EU countries increased for more than 20.000 people (Government of the Republic of Serbia, 2011, p. 27). As for the age structure of the emigrants, the age group that dominate are: groups aged 15 to 54 years (74,42%), then groups aged to 14 years (17,38%), while the age group over 65 years is in minority (8,2%) (Government of the Republic of Serbia, 2012, p. 27). According to Eurostat data, as far as the EU countries are concerned, Serbian emigrants mostly emigrate to Germany, then Italy and Hungary. As for the experts who have been leaving Serbia for more than two decades, we have to emphasize that, according to international organizations' estimations, from the mid 90's of the last century up till now, education of one expert has cost the state 300.000 US dollars. This implies that Serbia has lost more than 12 billion US dollars educating experts, whose values are used by other countries (Grečic, 2010, p. 12). Besides, it is easy to
comprehend the loss, if we recognize the fact, that we export our own experts without compensation, and buy technology of developed countries (where our experts work and create at the market price).
3 Migration Flows Forming Factors in Republic of Serbia
After the ascertainment that migration is one of the key features of demographic state of a country, it is logical to find out which factors are the ones causing migrations. As the dominant factors of migrations from developing to developed countries the empirical researches confirmed: employment, quality of life and stability of overall social and economic ambient. In this paper, a special emphasis will be put on education, because it represents a significant factor of migrations. Investing in education reflects on education structure of a population. Greater support to education should affect the increased level of education of a nation, and vice versa. Numerous studies indicate the positive correlation between the level of education of an individual and their inclination towards migrations from rural to urban areas. Besides, the role of education is noteworthy in international migrations, with the trend of highly educated experts' migration from developing to developed countries (Todaro and Smith, 2012, p. 386).
Table 1. Costs of research and development as percentage of GDP in the selected countries, 2000-2012
Country	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Serbia	0.96	0.35	0.72	0.56	0.32	0.43	0.49	0.36	0.38	0.92	0.79	0.78	0.99
Bulgaria	0.51	0.46	0.48	0.48	0.49	0.46	0.46	0.45	0.47	0.53	0.60	0.57	0.64
Croatia	1.06	0.93	0.96	0.96	1.04	0.87	0.75	0.80	0.89	0.85	0.75	0.76	0.75
Romania	0.37	0.39	0.38	0.39	0.39	0.41	0.45	0.52	0.58	0.47	0.46	0.50	0.49
Slovenia	1.38	1.49	1.46	1.27	1.39	1.44	1.56	1.45	1.65	1.86	2.11	2.47	2.80
EU	1.80	1.87	1.83	1.86	1.82	1.82	1.84	1.84	1.94	2.04	2.03	2.04	2.06
Euro zone	1.87	1.86	1.90	1.87	1.85	1.84	1.87	1.87	1.99	2.10	2.10	2.11	2.14
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (data.worldbank.org/indicator).
Regarding the aspect of investment in research and development (Table 1), one can notice that Serbia is similar to surrounding countries, except for Slovenia, whose investments are larger than the average of EU and Euro zone. In comparison to the average of considered integrations, Serbia does not provide satisfactory investments, which represents a limitation factor of scientific development, being one of the causes of leaving of young scientists and researchers from the country. However, as for the structure of costs of research and development in terms of research and development activities, in Serbia the costs for basic research prevail. As for the public expenditure for education in GDP, Serbia has a better position in comparison to other surrounding countries, except for Slovenia. In addition, it lags behind the average of EU and Euro zone.
Furthermore, unemployment can be described as disease of the modern world that both developed and developing countries have to deal with, especially the developing ones. One of the key measures in fighting unemployment is the improvement of professional skills and qualifications of the unemployed. However, in modern conditions, this measure is not too helpful, because among the unemployed, there is a mass of educated experts. This fact is disappointing and confusing with its paradoxicality, since the human capital is a poor resource whose employment represents a potential development boost of these countries. Unemployment among the educated people represents a crucial difference between the developed and developing countries, because developed countries have negative correlation between the unemployment rate and degree of education (Stark and Fan, 2011, p. 277).
Table 2. Unemployment rate in the selected countries
Country	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Serbia	18.50	20.80	20.80	18.10	13.60	16.60	19.20	23.00	23.90
Bulgaria	12.00	10.10	8.90	6.90	5.60	6.80	10.20	11.30	12.30
Croatia	13.70	12.60	11.10	9.60	8.40	9.10	11.80	13.40	15.80
Romania	7.70	7.20	7.30	6.40	5.80	6.90	7.30	7.40	7.00
Slovenia	6.30	6.50	6.00	4.80	4.40	5.90	7.20	8.20	8.80
EU	9.14	8.91	8.20	7.15	6.93	8.93	9.60	9.59	10.46
Euro zone	9.14	8.99	8.34	7.45	7.48	9.49	10.09	10.10	11.34
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators (data.worldbank.org/indicator).
With 23,90% of unemployed population, after Bosnia and Herzegovina with 28,10% of unemployed population, Serbia is an absolute leader in the region (Table 2). At the same time, unemployment is one of the most serious problems that creators of economic policy deal with, although during 2013 one could have noticed a decrease of unemployment rate to 20,1% (Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Serbia). If we recall a considerable increase of education level of Serbian population between 2002 and 2011, we can see a reverse correlation between the level of education and employment rate. Shortly, the increased level of education of population did not result in its increase, but in the increase of unemployment rate. In these circumstances, it is reasonable for a large number of people to search for a job outside the borders of their home country. In addition, a high unemployment rate in Serbia is dominantly the result of the people's inability to get a job, and not refusing to work for low salary.
That the situation in Serbia is serious, shows the unemployment rate of more than 20%, and also the unemployment rate of the population aged 15 to 24 years, which is over 50%. These facts introduce us to reality that Serbia has been increasingly dealing with - the "brain drain".
Finally, one of the factors that can shape the migration flows in the Republic of Serbia is the potential integration of Serbia into the EU. This factor could be explained as the moderator of emigration flows. However, integration of Serbia into the EU, would bring to explosive but temporary emigration in the first stage. This form of emigration has affected Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia instantly after they
became the EU member states. After the initial stage came the stagnation and then decline of emigration flows in those countries (Nikitovic, 2013, p. 194).
4 Competitiveness and Labor Force
It is clear that knowledge, entrepreneurship and innovations have become a synonym of modern conception of comparative advantages of a national economy. The goal of each national economy is to have a progressive flow in these fields, in order to enter the highest level of competitiveness (innovations).
If we define competitiveness as a set of institutions, policies and factors that specify the level of productivity of a national economy, it is clear that the human factor with its qualifications is the most significant factor affecting it. In the following text, we are going to focus on the competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia which has been, in the last few years, at an intolerable low level, although the Republic of Serbia has already entered the second stage of competitiveness (efficiency driven stage). At the first glance, it may not be observed, but the worst indicators of competitiveness in the example of the Republic of Serbia are in column 7 - the labour market efficiency. The indicators are devastating: from 144 countries, the republic of Serbia takes next-to-last position in respect of talents' attraction, and 141st position when the possibility to retain them is concerned. Certainly, the total macroeconomic social and political ambient affect such devastating situation, making us deal with the immense issue of experts' leaving the country without any indication of coming back. This implies a total absence of strategy of retaining and attracting experts without whom the general progress is impossible. This also affects ad hoc governed policy of labour force, scientific researches and education, as well as poorly conceived institutional conditions for education and attraction of experts.
There is no need to go further into the analysis of competitiveness of the Republic of Serbia, and the way emigration impacts it, having in mind that we are discussing about the most significant factor of social reproduction - the labour force. If such trend is not halted by concrete policies, it will come to the point when Serbian economy will more likely lose pace with modern economic flows, than find new opportunities for growth and development. As the main levers in the process of improving the ambience for forming and retaining young experts, a synergy among the state, educational, scientific and research institutions, social organizations, and private sector should be established. Taking into consideration that we are discussing the internal factors that affect competitiveness (invariable factors), each deterrence in improving the internal ambient of competitiveness is pure irresponsibility, not only towards present, but also towards the future generations.
Table 3. Seventh column of competitiveness-labour market efficiency
7	Indicator	Value	Range
7.01	Cooperation in labour-employer relations	3,3	140
7.02	Flexibility of wage determination	5,4	45
7.03	Hiring and firing practices	3,3	115
7.04	Redundancy costs, weeks of salary	7,7	22
7.05	Effect of taxation on incentives to work	2,6	136
7.06	Pay and productivity	3,4	116
7.07	Reliance on professional management	3,2	128
7.08	Country capacity to retain talent	1,8	141
7.09	Country capacity to attract talent	1,6	143
7.10	Women in labour force, ratio to men	0,77	81
Source: T	le Global Competitiveness Report 2014/15, W	orld Economic Forum, Gene-	
va, 2014, p. 329.
5 Conclusion
Demographic flows, especially migrations, are the result, as well as the cause of growth and development of the society. The human capital as one of the endogenous factors of economic development, is a pivot of society that is expected to provide a long-term perspective and prosperity.
International migrations are extremely important components of migrations. While during the last few decades in Europe migrations are attracting population, in Serbia prevails a population drain trend.
Educated people have represented the greatest ,"export resource" of Serbia, and the long term negative consequences of scientific emigration and the ,"brain drain" as its strongest aspect have been evident.
Exposed state of demographic flows in the Republic of Serbia is so alarming that it requires a serious approach in defining migration policy as a national priority.
To avoid a negative scenario of future migrations, an active policy against negative migration flows needs to be implemented by providing concrete life conditions and labour in the country for the entire population, especially the highly educated people. Creating a favourable ambience for the return of experts through providing labour conditions and recognition of foreign diploma certificates, are further elements of strategy in the struggle against emigration. Turning the ,"brain drain" into the ,'bra-in gain" by encouraging the return of our experts from abroad, are the priorities of migration policy that can in many ways represent a factor of improvement of the level of education, business and competitiveness of Serbia.
Considering this, as crucial goals within the suggested strategy of managing emigration flows and the,"brain drain", there have been defined: education of talents, attraction of emigrants' return, retaining of experts, employment of repatriates and the unemployed local population and improving the quality of life. These goals could
be attained by the increase increasing the investment in education and science, providing priorities to highly educated experts in employment, forming the database about the experts abroad, establishing a stronger connection between the local and foreign experts, attracting foreign direct investments, supporting start up companies' business, improving the educational program, providing scholarships for young scientists and experts and many more.
As crucial policies that should allow positive action towards strategic goals, there are recognized: fiscal, monetary-credit, educational and demographic policies. Their key role should be to abolish taxes on scholarships, encourage entrepreneurship business by large scope of measures such as: accelerated amortization, tax credit and tax debt, loans for experts and researchers, adjustment of education system to the requirements of the labour market, encouraging birth rate and improving demographic image of the country.
During the estimation of future migrations, one should be aware of the fact that migrations depend on numerous social and economic factors. Thus, it is necessary to mention the low rate of economic activity intensified by the world economic crisis, low level of investments, high unemployment rate, low level of life standard, frequent changes on political stage, strong regional differences, and the low level of civil society development. All these factors announce further domination of emigration tendencies, and especially the,"brain drain".
Dr. Zoran Arandjelovič, dr. VladislavMarjanoviC, mag. JelenaMladenovič Vpliv migracij na makroekonomsko konkurenčnost Republike Srbije
Migracije so prisotne v vseh svetovnih državah, tako v razvitih in nerazvitih. Njihov vpliv na razvoj nacionalne ekonomije je lahko bodisi pozitiven, bodisi negativen, še zlasti kar se tiče njene konkurenčnosti. V primeru napredne gospodarske politike in vrednotenja izobraževanja, znanstvenih potencialov in delavskih pravic, delujejo migracije kot spodbuda gospodarskega razvoja, in kot takšne, so predpogoj za imigra-cije oz. priseljevanja. Kadar pa politika zanemari izobraževanje, znanost in potrebe mladega prebivalstva, zadržuje razvoj družbe, kar posledično postane eden od osnovnih vzrokov za emigracije oz. odseljevanja.
Prispevek obravnava izobraževanje in zaposlovanje kot ključna dejavnika migracij, ne zgolj v Srbiji, marveč tudi v štirih drugih državah - Bolgariji, Hrvaški, Romuniji in Sloveniji, kot tudi v Evropski uniji in v evrskem območju. V nadaljevanju prispevka se ukvarjamo z nizko stopnjo makroekonomske konkurenčnosti Republike Srbije, ki je primarno določena predvsem z negativnimi migracijskimi tokovi v državi in stalnim »begom možganov«. Moč je zaznati pomanjkanje strateškega načrtovanja in neprimerno ekonomsko politiko kot ključna dejavnika tovrstnega negativnega trenda. V
zaključku prispevka navajamo vrsto priporočil, kako ustaviti negativne demografske trende in izboljšati makroekonomsko konkurenčnost v prihodnosti.
Prispevek navaja izobraževanje in zaposlovanje kot ključna dejavnika migracij, prav tako pa kot ključna motivatorja razvoja. Vlaganje v izobraževanje se odraža na izobrazbeni strukturi prebivalstva. Večja podpora izobraževanju bi naj vplivala na povečano stopnjo izobrazbene strukture prebivalstva in obratno. Številne študije kažejo pozitivno korelacijo med stopnjo izobrazbe posameznikov in njihovega nagnjenja k migracijam iz podeželja v urbana območja. Hkrati pa je vloga izobraževanja vredna omembe pri mednarodnih migracijah, kjer gre za trend priseljevanja visoko izobraženih strokovnjakov iz držav v razvoju v razvite države (Todaro in Smith, 2012, str. 386).
Pri obravnavi zaposlovanja kot drugega dejavnika selitve, upoštevamo brezposelnost kot bolezen sodobnega sveta, tako v razvitih državah in državah v razvoju. Vendar ko govorimo o brezposelnosti med izobraženimi ljudmi, je opazna razlika med razvitimi državami in državami v razvoju, saj je pri razvitih državah v ospredju negativna korelacija med stopnjo brezposelnosti in stopnjo izobrazbe (Stark in Fan, 2011, str. 277), medtem ko v državah v razvoju to ne velja.
V prispevku prav tako analiziramo stroške raziskav in razvoja v odstotku BDP v izbranih državah v obdobju od 2000 do 2012. Ti stroški imajo pomembno vlogo pri oblikovanju najvišjih izobrazbenih stopenj in so tako ključnega pomena za splošno stanje izobraževanja v državi. S tega vidika je Srbija podobna okoliškim državam, z izjemo Slovenije, ki ima naložbe v raziskave in razvoj večje od povprečja EU in evrskega območja. Kar se tiče javnih izdatkov za izobraževanje v BDP, ima Srbija boljši položaj v primerjavi z drugimi okoliških državah, z izjemo Slovenije. Pravzaprav zaostaja za povprečjem EU in evrskega območja.
Naslednji indikator, upoštevan v raziskavi, je stopnja brezposelnosti. Z 23,90 % brezposelnih, je Srbija, takoj za Bosno in Hercegovino z 28,10 % brezposelnih, vodilna v regiji. Istočasno je brezposelnost eden najpomembnejših problemov, ki ga obravnavajo gospodarski politiki, čeprav je bilo v letu 2013 moč opaziti zmanjšanje stopnje brezposelnosti na 20,1 % (Ministrstvo za Finance Republike Srbije). Visoka stopnja brezposelnosti v Srbiji je pretežno posledica tega, da ljudje ne morejo dobiti dela, in ne tega, da ljudje ne želijo delati za nizke plače. Da je stanje v Srbiji resno, kaže stopnja brezposelnosti, ki je večja od 20 %, pa tudi stopnja brezposelnosti prebivalstva, starega od 15 do 24 let, ki je večja od 50 %.
Premajhne naložbe v izobraževanje in visoka stopnja brezposelnosti, so opredeljene kot ključni dejavniki izseljevanja iz Srbije in drugih držav. Tako je najpogostejša in najmanj ugodna oblika izseljevana v mnogih državah v razvoju, t.i. »beg možganov«. Z odhajanjem najbolj uglednih strokovnjakov, državi grozi proces osiromašenja, ki je razviden iz dveh vidikov: 1) izguba priložnosti da se stroški izobraževanja strokovnjakov obrnejo v dobiček; 2) izguba potencialnega napredka, ki ga strokovnjaki s svojimi sposobnostmi zagotavljajo.
»Beg možganov« so kot pojav v Srbiji začeli zaznavati v sredini prejšnjega stoletja, in sčasoma je le-ta postal izjemnega pomena. Izobraženi ljudje prestavljajo največji
»izvozni vir« Srbije in dolgoročno, negativne posledice znanstvenega izseljevanja (in »bega možganov« kot najmočnejšega vidika), so več kot očitne. Raziskave kažejo, da je 40.000 visoko izobraženih ljudi, zapustilo državo že sredi 70-ih let prejšnjega stoletja. Med letoma 1990 in 2000, se je odselilo okoli 73.000 državljanov Srbije in Črne gore, od katerih je bilo 17.000 ljudi visoko izobraženih. Po letu 2000, je državo zapustilo več kot 2.000 visoko izobraženih ljudi in predpostavlja se, da je največje število visoko izobraženih emigrantov iz države, študiralo tehnične in naravoslovne vede.
V letu 2011, se je v primerjavi z letom 2010, število državljanov Republike Srbije v EU državah povečalo za več kot 20.000 (vlada Republike Srbije, 2011, str. 27). V zvezi s strokovnjaki, ki že več kot dve desetletji zapuščajo Srbijo, moramo poudariti, da (po ocenah mednarodnih organizacij od sredine 90. let prejšnjega stoletja) izobraževanje enega strokovnjaka stane državo okoli 300.000 ameriških dolarjev. To pomeni, da je Srbija izgubila že več kot 12 milijard dolarjev za izobraževanja strokovnjakov, čigar znanja in spretnosti izkoriščajo druge države (Grečic, 2010, str. 12). Nenazadnje, ta fenomen izgube je enostavno dojeti, če se zavemo dejstva, da »izvažamo« naše strokovnjake brez nadomestila, hkrati pa kupujemo razne tehnologije iz razvitih držav (kjer naši strokovnjaki delajo in ustvarjajo po tržni ceni).
Izseljevanje in »beg možganov« ima ogromen negativni vpliv na konkurenčnost nacionalnega gospodarstva. Najslabši kazalniki konkurenčnosti v primeru Republike Srbije so povezani z učinkovitostjo trga dela. Kazalniki izkazujejo porazno stanje: izmed 144 držav, Republika Srbija zavzema predzadnje mesto v povezavi s pridobivanjem nadarjenih in 141. mesto v povezavi s tem, da jih ohranijo. Omenjena situacija je glavni razlog za sprejem konkretnih ukrepov pri oblikovanju boljše migracijske slike Srbije, stanje trga dela in s tem konkurenčnosti nacionalne ekonomije. Kot glavni vzvod v postopku izboljševanja okolja za šolanje in ohranjanje mladih strokovnjakov v državi, je treba določiti sinergijo med državo, izobraževalnimi, znanstvenimi in raziskovalnimi ustanovami, družbenimi organizacijami in zasebnim sektorjem.
Najpomembnejši cilji v okviru predlagane strategije upravljanja izselitvenih tokov in »bega možganov«, so:
□	izobraževanje nadarjenih,
□	vabila emigrantom k vrnitvi,
□	ohranjanje strokovnjakov v državi,
□	zaposlovanje izseljencev, ki so se vrnili nazaj v domovino in brezposelnega lokalnega prebivalstva ter
□	izboljšanje kakovosti življenja.
Glavne naloge za uresničevanje teh ciljev so:
□	povečanje naložb v izobraževanje in znanost,
□	zagotavljanje prednosti za visoko izobražene strokovnjaki na področju zaposlovanja,
□	oblikovanje podatkovne zbirke o strokovnjakih v tujini,
□	vzpostavitev močnejše povezanosti domačih in tujih strokovnjakov,
□	privabljanje tujih neposrednih naložb,
□	podpiranje poslovanja start-up podjetij,
□	izboljšanje izobraževalnega programa,
□	zagotavljanje štipendij za mlade znanstvenike in strokovnjake,
□	priznavanje tujih diplom.
Prepoznane ključne politike, ki morajo omogočiti izvedbo pozitivnih ukrepov za doseganje strateških ciljev: fiskalna, kreditno-monetarna, izobraževalna in demografska politika. Le-te bi morale imeti glavno vlogo pri odpravi davkov na štipendije, spodbujati samostojno podjetništvo z ukrepi, kot so: pospešena amortizacija, davčne olajšave in odpis davčnih dolgov, posojila za strokovnjake in raziskovalce, prilagoditve izobraževalnega sistema potrebam trga dela, spodbujanje rodnosti in izboljšanje demografske slike države.
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Acad Prof Zoran Aranäelovic, PhD, Full Professor at the University of Niš, Faculty of Economics. E-mail: zoran.arandjelovic@eknfak.ni.ac.rs
Vladislav Marjanovic, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Niš, Faculty of Economics. E-mail: vladislav.marjanovic@eknfak.ni.ac.rs
Jelena Mladenovic, MSc, doctoral student at the University of Niš, Faculty of Economics. E-mail: mladenovic.jelena88@gmail.com