High-speed rail reinforces regional brain drain in Italy

The introduction of a high-speed train (HST) stop significantly increases student outflows from treated provinces, with an average 8 percent rise in students leaving for universities elsewhere.

This effect is one-sided, as no corresponding increase in student inflows is observed.

The study, covering Italy's HST network expansion from 2010 to 2019, reveals that this outflow is primarily driven by long-distance relocations, particularly from Southern regions towards larger urban centers like Naples and cities in the Center-North.

This pattern suggests that improved connectivity primarily facilitates the departure of students rather than attracting human capital, at least in the short to medium term, challenging assumptions about universal benefits for newly accessible areas.

Italy has experienced intensified internal student migration over the past two decades, with significant and persistent flows from less developed Southern regions to universities in the Center and North.

This one-way mobility exacerbates the long-lasting income gap and spatial concentration of talent.

The paper investigates how high-speed train (HST) stops affect student mobility, acknowledging that reduced travel times lower both economic and psychological costs of moving.

While HST could theoretically lead to either a 'brain gain' or 'brain drain', the net effect is ambiguous.

To empirically address this, the study uses administrative university enrollment data and exploits the staggered opening of HST stops in Italy from 2010 to 2019, employing a difference-in-differences design.