Sanket Mohapatra

Migration and remittances factbook 2008

This factbook for 2008 attempts to present numbers and facts behind the stories of international migration and remittances, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. It provides a snapshot of statistics on immigration, emigration, skilled emigration, and remittance flows for 194 countries and 13 regional and income groups. Some interesting facts from the Factbook: Nearly 200 million people, or 3 percent of the world population, live outside their countries of birth. Current migration flows, relative to population, are weaker than those of the last decades of the nineteenth century. The volume of South-South migration is almost as large as that of South-North migration. International migration is dominated by voluntary migration, which is driven by economic factors. In 2005, refugees numbered only 13.5 million, or just over 7 percent of international migrants. The share of refugees in the population of lowincome countries was more than five times larger than the share in high-income OECD countries. Worldwide remittance flows are estimated to have exceeded

Leveraging Migration for Africa: Remittances, Skills, and Investments

318 billion in 2007, of which developing countries received

Remittances and natural disasters: ex-post response and contribution to ex-ante preparedness

240 billion. The true size, including unrecorded flows through formal and informal channels, is believed to be signifi cantly larger.

Beyond Aid: New Sources and Innovative Mechanisms for Financing Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

International migration has profound implications for human welfare, and African governments have had only a limited influence on welfare outcomes, for good or ill. Improved efforts to manage migration will require information on the nature and impact of migratory patterns. This book seeks to contribute toward this goal, by reviewing previous research and providing new analyses (including surveys and case studies) as well as by formulating policy recommendations that can improve the migration experience for migrants, origin countries, and destination countries. The book comprises this introduction and summary and four chapters. Chapter one reviews the data on African migration and considers the challenges African governments face in managing migration. Chapter two discusses the importance of remittances, the most tangible link between migration and development; it also identifies policies that can facilitate remittance flows to Africa and increase their development impact. Chapter three analyzes high-skilled emigration and analyzes policies that can limit adverse implications and maximize positive implications for development. Chapter four considers ways in which Africa can leverage its diaspora resources to increase trade, investment, and access to technology.

Impact of Migration on Economic and Social Development: A Review of Evidence and Emerging Issues

Macro- and microeconomic evidence suggests a positive role of remittances in preparing households against natural disasters and in coping with the loss afterward. Analysis of cross-country macroeconomic data shows that remittances increase in the aftermath of natural disasters in countries that have a larger number of migrants abroad. Analysis of household survey data in Bangladesh shows that per capita consumption was higher in remittance-receiving households than in others after the 1998 flood. Ethiopian households that receive international remittances seem to rely more on cash reserves and less on selling household assets or livestock to cope with drought. In Burkina Faso and Ghana, international remittance-receiving households, especially those receiving remittances from high-income developed countries, tend to have housing built of concrete rather than mud and greater access to communication equipment, suggesting that they are better prepared against natural disasters.

Remittance Markets in Africa

Given Sub-Saharan Africas enormous resource needs for growth, poverty reduction, and other Millennium Development Goals, the development community has little choice but to continue to explore new sources of financing, innovative private-to-private sector solutions, and public-private partnerships to mobilize additional international financing. The paper suggests several new instruments for improving access to capital. An analysis of country creditworthiness suggests that many countries in the region may be more creditworthy than previously believed. Establishing sovereign rating benchmarks and credit enhancement through guarantee instruments provided by multilateral aid agencies would facilitate market access. Creative financial structuring, such as the International Financing Facility for Immunization, would help front-load aid commitments, although these may not result in additional financing in the long run. Preliminary estimates suggest that Sub-Saharan African countries can potentially raise USD 1-3 billion by reducing the cost of international migrant remittances, USD 5-10 billion by issuing diaspora bonds, and USD 17 billion by securitizing future remittances and other future receivables. African countries that have recently received debt relief however need to be cautious when resorting to market-based borrowing.

Tinker, Taper, QE, Bye? The Effect of Quantitative Easing on Financial Flows to Developing Countries

This paper provides a review of the literature on the development impact of migration and remittances on origin countries and on destination countries in the South. International migration is an ever-growing phenomenon that has important development implications for both sending and receiving countries. For a sending country, migration and the resulting remittances lead to increased incomes and poverty reduction, and improved health and educational outcomes, and promote economic development. Yet these gains might come at substantial social costs to the migrants and their families. Since many developing countries are also large recipients of international migrants, they face challenges of integration of immigrants, job competition between migrant and native workers, and fiscal costs associated with provision of social services to the migrants. This paper also summarizes incipient discussions on the impacts of migration on climate change, democratic values, demographics, national identity, and security. In conclusion, the paper highlights a few policy recommendations calling for better integration of migration in development policies in the South and the North, improving data collection on migration and remittance flows, leveraging remittances for improving access to finance of recipient households and countries, improving recruitment mechanisms, and facilitating international labor mobility through safe and legal channels.

Forecasting Migrant Remittances During the Global Financial Crisis

A substantive literature suggests that migration generates benefits for migrants, the host societies, and the countries of origin. The economic benefits for the countries of origin are realized primarily through the receipt of remittances. These large and stable resource flows remained relatively resilient during the global financial crisis compared to steep declines in private capital flows, and they have quickly recovered to the pre crisis levels. African countries are estimated to have received

Poverty, inequality and the distribution of income in the G20

40 billion in officially recorded flows in 2010, but the true size is believed to be far larger. Remittances are associated with reduction in poverty, improved education and health outcomes, and increased availability of funds for small business investments. Remittances represent a positive and relatively noncontroversial outcome of migration. This volume brings together studies of remittance markets in eight Sub-Saharan African countries and two key destinations for African migrants outside the African continent. It provides an overview of the remittance markets, and the policy and institutional environments in both sending and receiving countries. Based on primary surveys of remittance service providers about the types of remittance services, barriers to entry and exit, legal and regulatory environment, remittance costs, and innovative technologies, the chapters of this volume provide a unique window into the functioning of remittance markets in this region. the volume, measures to reduce remittance fees, increase market competition and consumer protection, increase the involvement of post offices and other non-bank institutions, and encourage the extension of mobile money transfer services to cross-border remittances will benefit the ultimate clients, the people of Africa. I hope that the findings of this volume will motivate more research, improved data collection, and policy action in the area of migrant remittances in Africa.

Unconventional monetary policy normalization in high-income countries : implications for emerging market capital flows and crisis risks

This paper examines gross financial inflows to developing countries between 2000 and 2013, with a particular focus on the potential effects of quantitative easing policies in the United States and other high-income countries. The paper finds evidence for potential transmission of quantitative easing along observable liquidity, portfolio balancing, and confidence channels. Moreover, quantitative easing had an additional effect over and above these observable channels, which the paper argues cannot be attributed to either market expectations or changes in the structural relationships between inflows and observable fundamentals. The baseline estimates place the lower bound of the effect of quantitative easing at around 5 percent of gross inflows (for the average developing economy), which suggests that of the 62 percent increase in inflows during 2009-13 related to changing global monetary conditions, at least 13 percent of this was attributable to quantitative easing. The paper also finds evidence of heterogeneity among different types of flows; portfolio (especially bond) flows tend to be more sensitive than foreign direct investment to our measured effects from quantitative easing. Finally, the paper performs simulations that explore the potential effects of the withdrawal of quantitative easing on financial flows to developing countries.