Christian Hubert Ebeke

Do remittances dampen the effect of natural disasters on output growth volatility in developing countries

This article examines whether or not remittance inflows help mitigate the effects of natural disasters on the volatility of the real output per capita growth rate. Using a large sample of developing countries and mobilizing a dynamic panel data framework, it uncovers a diminishing macroeconomic destabilizing consequence of natural disasters as remittance inflows rise. It appears that the effect of natural disasters disappears for a remittance ratio above 8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, remittances aggravate the destabilizing effects of natural disasters when they exceed 17% of the GDP. Finally, the article shows that current and lagged remittance inflows significantly reduce the number of people killed by natural disasters and the number of people affected, respectively.

Do Remittances Lead to a Public Moral Hazard in Developing Countries? An Empirical Investigation

This article tests the hypothesis that in a context of ‘bad governance’, remittance inflows strongly reduce public spending on education and health in receiving countries; a phenomenon called the ‘public moral hazard problem’. Using a large sample of 86 developing countries over the period 1996--2007, and after factoring in the endogeneity of remittances, the results suggest a negative impact of remittances on public spending on education and health, when governance is bad in remittance-dependent economies.Abstract This article tests the hypothesis that in a context of ‘bad governance’, remittance inflows strongly reduce public spending on education and health in receiving countries; a phenomenon called the ‘public moral hazard problem’. Using a large sample of 86 developing countries over the period 1996–2007, and after factoring in the endogeneity of remittances, the results suggest a negative impact of remittances on public spending on education and health, when governance is bad in remittance-dependent economies.

Remittances and Working Poverty

Abstract This article shows that the level and the predictability of remittances reduce working poverty in receiving economies through their effects on labour market dynamics. It takes advantage of the new cross-country dataset (ILO, KILM 7th edition) containing information on the share of individuals working for less than US

When Do Structural Reforms Work? On the Role of the Business Cycle and Macroeconomic Policies

2 per day. To identify the main impacts, the article proposes a novel approach to deal with the endogeneity of remittances and migration. In addition, the results are robust to the possible error in measuring working poverty, to the potential attrition bias, and to the presence of various control variables.

The effect of remittances prior to an election

Structural reforms are expected to lift growth and employment, but their effects are surprisingly difficult to pin down empirically. One reason is their potential endogeneity to the economic environment in which they are conducted. For example, the impact of a reform implemented shortly before a cyclical upswing is difficult to distinguish from the recovery itself. Similarly, macroeconomic policies conducted along a structural reform could affect the estimated impact. Exploring various options, this paper develops robust estimates of the impact of labor and product market reforms by using local projection techniques while controlling for endogeneity of reforms and other biases. The results suggest that labor and product market reforms have a lagged but positive impact on employment creation, and the positive effect remains even after controlling for the endogeneity of the decision to reform. Supportive macroeconomic policies are found to increase the effect of labor and product market reforms, consistent with the view that some structural reforms are best initiated in conjunction with supportive fiscal or monetary policy.

Are Remittances and Foreign Aid a Hedge Against Food Price Shocks in Developing Countries

The objective of the article is to assess whether remittances have an influence on political manipulation, which may occur prior to an election, through an increase in the government consumption-to-GDP ratio. We combine data from the National Elections across Democracy and Autocracy data set compiled and discussed in Hyde and Marinov (2012) and the World Development Indicators data set. We focus on 70 developing countries over the period 1990–2010. It appears that the political budget cycle is reduced up to the point where it is fully cancelled out at a remittance threshold of 10.7% of GDP. Those findings are robust to different robustness checks.