Publications

Worker Remittances and Economic Development

Spatafora, Nikola

This paper uses data on international remittances covering up to 101 countries over the period 1970 to 2003 to analyze the impact of remittances on economic growth.  Using an instrumental variables approach to account for endogeneity, it finds no statistically significant link between remittances and per capita output growth.  The paper also finds no significant link between remittances and education (secondary enrollment) and remittances and investment (investment/GDP).  The author, however, cautions that identifying the impact of remittances on economic growth may be difficult using macro-economic data alone because of the difficulty of disentangling the various links.

Published: 2005

Citation: Spatafora, Nikola, "Worker Remittances and Economic Development," World Economic Outlook in (April), ed. , 2005, 69-84.

Collected in:

Anthology
Topic 11 – Remittances and Economic Growth