Remittances, natural disasters and economic shocks

: A case of immigrants in Italy

Abstract

This paper studies the dynamic response of remittances to natural disasters and other economic shocks in developing countries. The study uses a novel and rich panel data set of quarterly remittance from Italy to 74 developing countries for the period 2005 to 2018. It finds that quarterly remittance flows play only a limited role in mitigating the impact of macroeconomic shocks in the home country. The counter-cyclical role of remittances to quarterly economic shocks is more pronounced for poorer developing countries. This study also finds that the
immigrant stock is a much stronger determinant of remittance flows compared to other factors and that remittances are resilient to economic shocks in the host country.

Date of Award	28 Jul 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Namur
Supervisor	Romain Houssa (Supervisor) & Stephanie Weynants (Co-Supervisor)