INTERNATIONAL REMITTANCES AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN AFRICA

John Anyanwu

Review of Economic and Business Studies, 2011, issue 7, 117-148

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of migrant remittances on income inequality in African countries, using a panel of five eight-year non-overlapping windows for the period 1960-2006. The results suggest that, first, international migrant remittances have a significant positive impact on income inequality in African countries. After instrumenting for the possible endogeneity of remittances, a 10 percent increase in remittances as a percentage of GDP will lead, on average, to a 0.013 percent increase in income inequality in Africa. Second, initial per capita GDP strongly increases income inequality. Third, inflation rate appears to be the strongest factor fueling income inequality in the Continent. Fourth, education significantly reduces income inequality. Fifth, the North African dummy and remittances inflows to North Africa largely reduce income inequality in the sub-region while doing the opposite in Sub-Saharan Africa. The policy implications of these results are discussed.

Keywords: International Remittances; Income Inequality; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 F24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (73)

Downloads: (external link)
http://rebs.ro/resource/REBS_7/Research%20Paper/An ... TY%20IN%20AFRICA.pdf (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:aic:revebs:y:2011:i:7:anyanwuj

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Economic and Business Studies from Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sireteanu Napoleon-Alexandru ().