Abstract
How responsive are migrant remittances to various disasters, both natural and human-made? Would remittances be affected by systemic financial crises, such as the 2008–09 financial crisis, or more recent crises affecting the Eurozone? Using panel data on 23 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries from 1980 to 2007, we find that remittances are slow to respond to natural disasters, unresponsive to outbreaks of conflict, and will slowly decline following a systemic financial crisis. This suggests that, given its stability, remittances are sources of resilience in SSA.
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Notes
In October 2013 more than 300 African migrants died when the boat they used to cross the Mediterranean sunk. The Maltese Premier described the Mediterranean as a ‘cemetery’ (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24502279).
For a more in-depth discussion on the role of remittances and migration during a global financial crisis, see Naudé and Bezuidenhout (2012:337–347).
We dealt in more detail with this issue in Naudé and Bezuidenhout (2012) and in this regard rely much on this earlier paper.
For the effects and interplay of ODA and remittances, see OECD (2005).
The countries are Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sudan, Swaziland and Togo.
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Naudé, W.A., Bezuidenhout, H. Migrant Remittances Provide Resilience Against Disasters in Africa. Atl Econ J 42, 79–90 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-014-9403-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-014-9403-9