Why do migrants remit? An insightful analysis for Moroccan case

Jamal Bouoiyour (1) , Amal Miftah (2)

1 CATT - Centre d'Analyse Théorique et de Traitement des données économiques
2 LEDA-DIAL - Développement, Institutions et Modialisation

This paper uses the LSMS Moroccan data and the Heckman two-step estimator to analyze, the determinants of migrants’ remittances at a microeconomic level. In particular, we assess what motivate international migrants to send remittances towards households and we examine the main factors that affect the likelihood of remittances being sent. Our results lend support to the altruistic hypothesis involving that remittances are sending to households with low levels of welfare. Furthermore, the decision to remit is intensely associated to individual characteristics such as migrant income, gender and age. Likewise, remittances may be viewed as loan repayment if the migration costs were borne by the remittance-receiving family.

Keywords: International migration; Migrants' remittances; Heckman two-step estimator; Morocco

Domains: Economics and Finance

Jamal Bouoiyour, Amal Miftah. Why do migrants remit? An insightful analysis for Moroccan case. 2014. ⟨hal-01880332⟩