Journal of Urban Economics and Management

Brand equity is one of the significant categories in the international competition field, through which we can decrease the rate of immigration from cities and protect urban human resources. The purpose of this text is to find an organized and a coherent answer in regards to reasons of reduction of immigration of specialists who are post graduated in Mashhad and their sense of belonging to their own city as well. There are numbers of reasons for promotion of sense of attachment, so city identity shall be deemed as an important topic in this regard. However, branding topic in this area is what has been underestimated in former researches. Now the question is how an urban brand can leave an impression on the immigration of experts who are post graduated. Therefore, the current Manuscript presents a creative real model for explanation of the city brand role on reduction of specialists’ immigration rate from Mashhad, emphasizing the role of identity as a mediator. The data being required for this research have been collected by questionnaires, through an accessible targeted non-random sampling from specialists from Mashhad who are post graduated. This research is an applied-surveying type in which the structural equations method is used by use of Smart PLS software for data analysis. The results show that the city brand is effective on identification and reduction of rate of immigration from Mashhad. The role of identity as a mediator in impression of city brand on reduction of rate of immigration from Mashhad has been proved in review of indirect effect of this study.