Remittances and Business Cycles: Comparison of South Asian Countries

Mazhar Mughal (1) , Junaid Ahmed

1 CATT - Centre d'Analyse Théorique et de Traitement des données économiques

South Asia is one of the world?s principal remittance-receiving regions. This study examines the home and host business cycles of migrant remittances to the region. Employing Structural VAR, the remittance behaviour of the region?s four main countries is compared. Remittances to India and Pakistan show a mainly acyclical behaviour with respect to the output of the four host regions, and a countercyclical one with the home output. In contrast, remittances to the two smaller economies of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are found to be mainly procyclical. The study shows that remittance behaviour varies with respect to the importance of remittance flows in the home economy. Moreover, remittance behaviour seems to respond more to home economy specificities than to those of the different regions hosting the migrants from the developing country.

Mots clés: Bangladesh; South-Asia; Remittances; Business cycles; India; Pakistan; Sri Lanka; SVAR

Domaines: Economies et finances

Mazhar Mughal, Junaid Ahmed. Remittances and Business Cycles: Comparison of South Asian Countries. 2013. ⟨hal-01885151⟩