Remittances, Growth and Poverty Reduction in Asia - A Critical Review of the Literature and the New Evidence from Cross-country Panel Data

Katsushi Imai, Bilal Malaeb and Fabrizio Bresciani
Additional contact information
Fabrizio Bresciani: Asia and the Pacific Division of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Italy

No DP2016-28, Discussion Paper Series from Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University

Abstract: This study provides a critical review of the role of remittances and migration in promoting growth and reducing and poverty and inequality in developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. It also uses the cross-country panel data and examines the effect of remittances on economic growth, poverty and inequality after taking into account the endogeneity of remittances. First, it has been found from our econometric results that remittances will promote economic growth and reduce poverty - both national poverty and rural poverty based on the international poverty lines for the US$1.25 or US$2 thresholds, while the remittances have no inequality-reducing effect. Second, we have suggested the importance of understanding the underlying factors enabling households to undertake migration and remittances in relation with the underlying structural transformation of the rural economy, such as its shift to the non-farm sector, which typically takes place as village infrastructure develops and educational level of the households improves. Third, we argue that the risk-coping roles of remittances at both macro and micro level are important in understanding the poverty-reducing mechanisms associated with migration and remittances. Fourth, poor households outside the village networks should be supported by policy measures. This is important particularly because our result suggests that the remittances increase inequality in rural areas.

Keywords: Remittances; Migration; Growth; Poverty; Inequality; Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 I30 O10 O15 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 56 pages
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/academic/ra/dp/English/DP2016-28.pdf First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2016-28

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Paper Series from Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University 2-1 Rokkodai, Nada, Kobe 657-8501 JAPAN. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Office of Promoting Research Collaboration, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University ().