Remittances, savings and return migration under uncertainty

Matthieu Delpierre and Bertrand Verheyden

IZA Journal of Migration and Development, 2014, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-43

Abstract: Recent empirical evidence links migrant remittances, savings and return migration, and stresses the inaccuracy of return migration plans. This paper presents a model of endogenous remittances, savings and return decisions under uncertainty. In our framework, migrants make remittance and saving decisions at an early stage of migration, when their long term economic performance in the host country is still uncertain. Over time, information about professional prospects is acquired, and conditionally on past decisions, migrants adjust their return plans. We show that when migrants expect large gains from migration and face relatively low wage risks in the host country, they tend to remit less, save more and are less likely to return migrate. These results are in line with recent empirical evidence and provide a rationale for the support by relatives in the sending country of low-skill, illegal migration. JEL codes D13; D80; JE Copyright Delpierre and Verheyden; licensee Springer. 2014

Keywords: Remittances; Savings; Risk; Return migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1186/s40176-014-0022-7 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Remittances, savings and return migration under uncertainty (2014)
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:spr:izamig:v:3:y:2014:i:1:p:1-43:10.1186/s40176-014-0022-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40176

DOI: 10.1186/s40176-014-0022-7

Access Statistics for this article

IZA Journal of Migration and Development is currently edited by Amelie F. Constant, Denis Fougère and Tommaso Colussi

More articles in IZA Journal of Migration and Development from Springer, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().