IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v110y2018icp38-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of foreign remittances on poverty in Nepal: A panel study of household survey data, 1996–2011

Author

Listed:
  • Wagle, Udaya R.
  • Devkota, Satis

Abstract

Using data from the longitudinal panel surveys of 1996, 2004, and 2011, this paper examines the dynamics of foreign remittances and their impact on poverty in Nepal. The intent is to explore how foreign remittances have evolved and impacted poverty and economic well-being of households. Focusing on a consistent set of households across the three survey rounds in a balanced panel format helps examine the effect of foreign remittances with appropriate controls. Results from methodologically consistent, random-effects regressions that correct for potential attrition and heterogeneity bias support significant poverty-reducing and, more accurately, economic well-being-enhancing effects of foreign remittances especially when originating in countries other than India. This and other findings are valuable to the assessment of policies on utilizing foreign labor migration and remittances as a vehicle to reduce poverty in Nepal.

Suggested Citation

  • Wagle, Udaya R. & Devkota, Satis, 2018. "The impact of foreign remittances on poverty in Nepal: A panel study of household survey data, 1996–2011," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 38-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:110:y:2018:i:c:p:38-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.05.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X18301670
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.05.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Du, Yang & Park, Albert & Wang, Sangui, 2005. "Migration and rural poverty in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 688-709, December.
    2. Stark, Oded & Bloom, David E, 1985. "The New Economics of Labor Migration," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 173-178, May.
    3. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    4. Alan S. Blinder, 1973. "Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 8(4), pages 436-455.
    5. Bell, Andrew & Jones, Kelvyn, 2015. "Explaining Fixed Effects: Random Effects Modeling of Time-Series Cross-Sectional and Panel Data," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(1), pages 133-153, January.
    6. Michael Carter & Christopher Barrett, 2006. "The economics of poverty traps and persistent poverty: An asset-based approach," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 178-199.
    7. Becketti, Sean & Gould, William & Lillard, Lee & Welch, Finis, 1988. "The Panel Study of Income Dynamics after Fourteen Years: An Evaluatio n," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(4), pages 472-492, October.
    8. Udaya R. Wagle, 2017. "The Caste/Ethnic Bases of Poverty Dynamics: A Longitudinal Analysis of Chronic and Structural Poverty in Nepal," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(9), pages 1430-1451, September.
    9. Myat Mon, 2010. "Burmese labour migration into Thailand: governance of migration and labour rights," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 33-44.
    10. Oded Stark, 1991. "The Migration of Labor," Blackwell Books, Wiley Blackwell, number 1557860300, April.
    11. Michael Lokshin & Mikhail Bontch‐Osmolovski & Elena Glinskaya, 2010. "Work‐Related Migration and Poverty Reduction in Nepal," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(2), pages 323-332, May.
    12. Mathia Sinning & Markus Hahn & Thomas K. Bauer, 2008. "The Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition for nonlinear regression models," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(4), pages 480-492, December.
    13. Menuka Karki & Alok K. Bohara, 2014. "Evidence of Earnings Inequality Based on Caste in Nepal," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 52(3), pages 262-286, September.
    14. World Bank, 2017. "World Development Indicators 2017," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 26447.
    15. Adams, Richard H., Jr. & Cuecuecha, Alfredo & Page, John, 2008. "The impact of remittances on poverty and inequality in Ghana," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4732, The World Bank.
    16. Carter, Michael R. & May, Julian, 2001. "One Kind of Freedom: Poverty Dynamics in Post-apartheid South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(12), pages 1987-2006, December.
    17. Richard Adams, 2011. "Evaluating the Economic Impact of International Remittances On Developing Countries Using Household Surveys: A Literature Review," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(6), pages 809-828.
    18. Mundlak, Yair, 1978. "On the Pooling of Time Series and Cross Section Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 69-85, January.
    19. Udaya Wagle, 2016. "The Role of Remittances in Determining Economic Security and Poverty in Myanmar," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 28(4), pages 536-554, September.
    20. Gustafsson, Bjorn & Makonnen, Negatu, 1993. "Poverty and Remittances in Lesotho," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 2(1), pages 49-73, May.
    21. Agustín Escobar Latapí, 2012. "Migration vs. development? The case of poverty and inequality in Mexico," Migration Letters, Migration Letters, vol. 9(1), pages 65-74, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anca Mehedintu & Georgeta Soava & Mihaela Sterpu, 2019. "The Effect of Remittances on Poverty in the Emerging Countries of the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-14, June.
    2. Acheampong, Alex O. & Appiah-Otoo, Isaac & Dzator, Janet & Agyemang, Kwabena Koforobour, 2021. "Remittances, financial development and poverty reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for post-COVID-19 macroeconomic policies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1365-1387.
    3. Prabhat Khanal & Rajan Dhakal & Tanka Khanal & Deepak Pandey & Naba Raj Devkota & Mette Olaf Nielsen, 2022. "Sustainable Livestock Production in Nepal: A Focus on Animal Nutrition Strategies," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-20, May.
    4. Jifei Zhang & Chunyan Liu & Craig Hutton & Hriday Lal Koirala, 2018. "Geographical Dynamics of Poverty in Nepal between 2005 and 2011: Where and How?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-24, June.
    5. Mercy. T. Musakwa & N. M. Odhiambo, 2020. "Remittance Inflows and Poverty Dynamics in South Africa: An Empirical Investigation," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, December.
    6. Kapri, Kul & Ghimire, Shankar, 2020. "Migration, remittance, and agricultural productivity: Evidence from the Nepal Living Standard Survey," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    7. Sven Steinkamp & Frank Westermann, 2022. "Development aid and illicit capital flight: Evidence from Nepal," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(7), pages 2305-2336, July.
    8. Smith-Hall, Carsten & Piplani, Meenakshi & Pyakurel, Dipesh, 2024. "Theorising and analysing the forest-based bioeconomy through a global production network lens," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    9. Mercy. T. Musakwa & N. M. Odhiambo, 2019. "THE impact of remittance inflows on poverty in Botswana: an ARDL approach," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, December.
    10. Anil Shrestha & Makoto Kakinaka, 2022. "Remittance Inflows and Energy Transition of the Residential Sector in Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, August.
    11. Adhikari, Laxmi D. & Saghaian, Sayed, 2022. "Research Report: Impact of Remittance on Household Welfare: Evidence from the Western Region of Nepal," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 53(01), March.
    12. Junying Lin & Zhonggen Zhang & Lingli Lv, 2019. "The Impact of Program Participation on Rural Household Income: Evidence from China’s Whole Village Poverty Alleviation Program," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-15, March.
    13. Dhruba Bhandari, 2020. "Are Households Utilizing Remittance on Quality Education? An Empirical Study from Nepal," Journal of Development Innovations, KarmaQuest International, vol. 4(1), pages 179-195, July.
    14. Furqan Sikandar & Vasilii Erokhin & Hongshu Wang & Shafiqur Rehman & Anna Ivolga, 2021. "The Impact of Foreign Capital Inflows on Agriculture Development and Poverty Reduction: Panel Data Analysis for Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-22, March.
    15. Donato Romano & Silvio Traverso, 2020. "Disentangling the Impact of International Migration on Food and Nutrition Security of Left-Behind Households: Evidence from Bangladesh," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(4), pages 783-811, September.
    16. Narayan Prasad Gautam & Nirmal Kumar Raut & Bir Bahadur Khanal Chhetri & Nirjala Raut & Muhammad Haroon U. Rashid & Xiangqing Ma & Pengfei Wu, 2021. "Determinants of Poverty, Self-Reported Shocks, and Coping Strategies: Evidence from Rural Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-20, February.
    17. Waliu O. Shittu & Gazi M. Hassan & Frank G. Scrimgeour, 2023. "COVID-19 and the Role of Remittances on Sustainable Development: Insights from Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers in Economics 23/05, University of Waikato.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Udaya Wagle, 2016. "The Role of Remittances in Determining Economic Security and Poverty in Myanmar," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 28(4), pages 536-554, September.
    2. Yonas Alem & Lisa Andersson, 2019. "International Remittances and Private Interhousehold Transfers: Exploring the Links," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(4), pages 902-928, September.
    3. Song, Zhongchen & Coupé, Tom & Reed, W. Robert, 2021. "Estimating the effect of the one-child policy on Chinese household savings - Evidence from an Oaxaca decomposition," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Alem, Yonas, 2018. "Shocks, Remittances and Household Consumption: A Dynamic System GMM Analysis," EfD Discussion Paper 18-2, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    5. Stephen Asafo Agyei, 2021. "The Dynamics of Remittances Impact: A Mixed-Method Approach to Understand Ghana’s Situation and the Way Forward," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-21, October.
    6. Chakra P. ACHARYA & Roberto LEON-GONZALEZ, 2013. "The Impact of Remittance on Poverty and Inequality: A Micro-Simulation Study for Nepal," Asian Journal of Empirical Research, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(9), pages 1061-1080, September.
    7. Coulibaly, Issiaka & Dembélé, Moustapha, 2024. "Impacts of remittances from internal and international migrants on poverty and inequality in Mali," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    8. Chakra P ACHARYA & Roberto LEON-GONZALEZ, 2013. "The Impact of Remittance on Poverty and Inequality: A Micro-Simulation Study for Nepal," Asian Journal of Empirical Research, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 3(9), pages 1061-1080.
    9. Jakub Picka, 2014. "Problém "public-private pay gap" v České republice [The Public-Private Pay Gap in the Czech Republic]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(5), pages 662-682.
    10. Gómez-Echeverry, Santiago, 2024. "Within the cracks of the cosmic race: Income inequalities by race and ethnicity in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    11. Brandon Vick, 2017. "Measuring links between labor monopsony and the gender pay gap in Brazil," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-28, December.
    12. Powers, Daniel A. & Yun, Myeong-Su, 2009. "Multivariate Decomposition for Hazard Rate Models," IZA Discussion Papers 3971, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Gustavo Canavire-Bacarreza & Luis C. Carvajal-Osorio, 2020. "Two Stories of Wage Dynamics in Latin America: Different Policies, Different Outcomes," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 128-168, June.
    14. Thomas Bauer & Mathias Sinning, 2011. "The savings behavior of temporary and permanent migrants in Germany," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 24(2), pages 421-449, April.
    15. Lawrence M. Berger & Sara S. McLanahan, 2011. "Child Wellbeing in Two-Parent Families: How Do Characteristics and Relationships Matter?," Working Papers 1322, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    16. Wolff, François-Charles, 2012. "Decomposition of non-linear models using simulated residuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 346-348.
    17. Özler, Berk, 2007. "Not Separate, Not Equal: Poverty and Inequality in Post-apartheid South Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(3), pages 487-529, April.
    18. Francesco Figari, 2012. "Cross-national differences in determinants of multiple deprivation in Europe," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(3), pages 397-418, September.
    19. Kaya Ezgi, 2021. "Gender wage gap across the distribution: What is the role of within- and between-firm effects?," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 12(1), pages 1-49, January.
    20. Simone Bertoli & Francesca Marchetta, 2014. "Migration, Remittances and Poverty in Ecuador," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(8), pages 1067-1089, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign remittance; Poverty; Economic well-being; Nepal; Panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers
    • R2 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:110:y:2018:i:c:p:38-50. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.