Remittances, Banking Status and the Usage of Insurance Schemes

Dorothee Crayen, Christa Hainz and Christiane Ströh de Martinez

No 137, ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich

Abstract: Empirical evidence that migrants send home more remittances after disasters raises the question of whether remittances are used to self-insure, substituting for both formal and informal insurance. We investigate this question using a unique dataset on the usage patterns of financial services by households in South Africa. We show that the likelihood that a respondent has a formal funeral cover increases with income and banking status. However, it is lower for individuals receiving remittances, which supports the idea that remittances act as self-insurance. We also show that other risk management strategies influence the purchasing of formal funeral cover. Finally, we find that determinants of informal insurance differ from those of formal insurance.

JEL-codes: D14 F24 G22 O16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/IfoWorkingPaper-137.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Remittances, Banking Status and the Usage of Insurance Schemes (2013)
Working Paper: Remittances, Banking Status and the Usage of Insurance Schemes (2010)
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:ces:ifowps:_137

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ifo Working Paper Series from ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().