Do Migrants Really Save More? Understanding the Impact of Remittances on Savings in Rural China

Yu Zhu, Zhongmin Wu (), Meiyan Wang, Yang Du and Fang Cai

Studies in Economics from School of Economics, University of Kent

Abstract: This paper studies the impact of remittances on the savings behaviour of rural households in China, using a cross-sectional survey. Allowing for endogeneity and left-censoring of remittances, we find that the marginal propensity to save out of remittances is well below half of that out of other sources of incomes. Moreover, we find no evidence of any direct effect of remittances on either capital input or gross output of farm production. These findings are in line with recent studies which conclude that remittances are largely used for consumption purposes by rural Chinese households and there is no link between migration and productive investment.

Keywords: Growth and cycles; recessions; technical efficiency; technical progress. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 O15 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-mig and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Do Migrants Really Save More? Understanding the Impact of Remittances on Savings in Rural China (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:0923

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