According to the International Monetary Fund, the Islamic Republic of Iran had a substantial drain of highly educated individuals (15 percent) in the early 1990s. More than 150,000 Iranians left the Islamic Republic every year in the early 1990s, and an estimated 25% of all Iranians with post-secondary education then lived abroad in "developed countries" (according to the standards of the OECD). A report by the International Monetary Fund in 2009 indicated that Iran tops the list of countries losing their academic elite, with an annual loss of 150,000 to 180,000 specialists. It is equivalent to a capital loss of $50 billion. In addition, the political crackdown following the 2009 election protests is said to have created a "spreading refugee exodus" of elite Iranians. It has also been repo