IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rsc/rsceui/2011-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social Safety Nets: The Role of Education, Remittances and Migration

Author

Listed:
  • Yaw Nyarko
  • Kwabena Gyimah-Brempon

Abstract

We study the role of education as a social protection mechanism. We compare the effectiveness of direct cash handouts in comparison to education over the long-term in reducing the vulnerability to poverty. We also look at the role of three inter-related mechanisms related to protection against shocks: Education, Remittances and Migration. We compute internal rates of return to investments education when the objective is social protection or poverty, and not just the value of incomes. We use Ghanaian Livings Survey data and show that, for benchmark interest rates, the returns to primary and secondary education are positive for social protection. This suggests that for the long-run, education may be a more important means of social protection than cash transfers.

Suggested Citation

  • Yaw Nyarko & Kwabena Gyimah-Brempon, 2011. "Social Safety Nets: The Role of Education, Remittances and Migration," RSCAS Working Papers 2011/26, European University Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:rsc:rsceui:2011/26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/17220/RSCAS_2011_26.pdf?sequence=1
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Quisumbing, Agnes R., 2004. "Consumption insurance and vulnerability to poverty : a synthesis of the evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mali, Mexico and Russia," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 29141, The World Bank.
    2. Albert Bollard & David McKenzie & Melanie Morten & Hillel Rapoport, 2011. "Remittances and the Brain Drain Revisited: The Microdata Show That More Educated Migrants Remit More," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 25(1), pages 132-156, May.
    3. Yoko Niimi & Thai Hung Pham & Barry Reilly, 2009. "Determinants of Remittances: Recent Evidence Using Data on Internal Migrants in Vietnam," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 23(1), pages 19-39, March.
    4. John Page & Sonia Plaza, 2006. "Migration Remittances and Development: A Review of Global Evidence," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(2), pages 245-336, December.
    5. Vargas-Silva, Carlos & Jha, Shikha & Sugiyarto, Guntur, 2009. "Remittances in Asia: Implications for the Fight against Poverty and the Pursuit of Economic Growth," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 182, Asian Development Bank.
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5126 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. John Gibson & David McKenzie & Steven Stillman, 2011. "The Impacts of International Migration on Remaining Household Members: Omnibus Results from a Migration Lottery Program," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1297-1318, November.
    8. Mr. Sanjeev Gupta & Ms. Catherine A Pattillo & Ms. Smita Wagh, 2007. "Impact of Remittances on Poverty and Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," IMF Working Papers 2007/038, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Dean Yang, 2008. "International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 591-630, April.
    10. Foster, James & Greer, Joel & Thorbecke, Erik, 1984. "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 761-766, May.
    11. Yaw Nyarko & Kwabena Gyimah-Brempon, 2011. "Social Safety Nets: The Role of Education, Remittances and Migration," RSCAS Working Papers 2011/26, European University Institute.
    12. Maurice Kugler, 2006. "Migrant Remittances, Human Capital Formation and Job Creation Externalities in Colombia," Borradores de Economia 3218, Banco de la Republica.
    13. Raihan, Selim & H. Khondker, Bazlul & Sugiyarto, Guntur & Jha, Shikha, 2009. "Remittances and Household Welfare: A Case Study of Bangladesh," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 189, Asian Development Bank.
    14. Richard P.C. Brown & Eliana Jimenez, 2008. "Estimating the net effects of migration and remittances on poverty and inequality: comparison of Fiji and Tonga," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 547-571.
    15. José Ernesto López-Córdova & Alexandra Olmedo, 2006. "International remittances and development : existing evidence, policies and recommendations," INTAL Working Papers 1290, Inter-American Development Bank, INTAL.
    16. Acosta, Pablo A. & Lartey, Emmanuel K.K. & Mandelman, Federico S., 2009. "Remittances and the Dutch disease," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 102-116, September.
    17. Agnes Quisumbing & Scott McNiven, 2010. "Moving Forward, Looking Back: the Impact of Migration and Remittances on Assets, Consumption, and Credit Constraints in the Rural Philippines," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(1), pages 91-113.
    18. Dustmann, Christian & Mestres, Josep, 2010. "Remittances and temporary migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 62-70, May.
    19. Marilena Giannetti & Daniela Federici & Michele Raitano, 2009. "Migrant remittances and inequality in Central-Eastern Europe," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(3), pages 289-307.
    20. Weigand, Christine & Grosh, Margaret, 2008. "Levels and patterns of safety net spending in developing and transition countries," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 44857, The World Bank.
    21. Acosta, Pablo & Calderon, Cesar & Fajnzylber, Pablo & Lopez, Humberto, 2008. "What is the Impact of International Remittances on Poverty and Inequality in Latin America?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 89-114, January.
    22. P. Ang, Alvin & Sugiyarto, Guntur & Jha, Shikha, 2009. "Remittances and Household Behavior in the Philippines," ADB Economics Working Paper Series 188, Asian Development Bank.
    23. Margaret Grosh & Carlo del Ninno & Emil Tesliuc & Azedine Ouerghi, 2008. "For Protection and Promotion : The Design and Implementation of Effective Safety Nets," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 6582.
    24. Krishnan Sharma, 2009. "The Impact of Remittances on Economic Insecurity," Working Papers 78, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    25. 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.
    26. Jean-Paul Azam & Flore Gubert, 2006. "Migrants' Remittances and the Household in Africa: A Review of Evidence," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(2), pages 426-462, December.
    27. Glewwe, Paul, 1991. "Investigating the determinants of household welfare in Cote d'Ivoire," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 307-337, April.
    28. McKenzie, David & Rapoport, Hillel, 2006. "Migration and Education Inequality in Rural Mexico," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 2657, Inter-American Development Bank.
    29. Michael T. Gapen & Mr. Ralph Chami & Mr. Peter J Montiel & Mr. Adolfo Barajas & Connel Fullenkamp, 2009. "Do Workers’ Remittances Promote Economic Growth?," IMF Working Papers 2009/153, International Monetary Fund.
    30. Nicholas P. Glytsos, 2005. "The contribution of remittances to growth: A dynamic approach and empirical analysis," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 32(5), pages 468-496, October.
    31. Mazzucato, Valentina, 2009. "Informal Insurance Arrangements in Ghanaian Migrants' Transnational Networks: The Role of Reverse Remittances and Geographic Proximity," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 1105-1115, June.
    32. Devesh KAPUR, 2004. "Remittances: The New Development Mantra?," G-24 Discussion Papers 29, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
    33. HwaJung Choi, 2007. "Are Remittances Insurance? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in the Philippines," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 21(2), pages 219-248, May.
    34. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2006. "Remittances as insurance: evidence from Mexican immigrants," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 227-254, June.
    35. Osili, Una Okonkwo, 2007. "Remittances and savings from international migration: Theory and evidence using a matched sample," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 446-465, July.
    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. John Ssozi & Simplice A. Asongu, 2016. "The Effects of Remittances on Output per Worker in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Production Function Approach," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 84(3), pages 400-421, September.
    2. Oulmane, Nassim & Sadni Jallab, Mustapha & Zidouemba, Patrice, 2020. "The African Continental Free Trade Area in a Covid-19 time : macroeconomic and sectoral impacts," Conference papers 333158, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    3. Simplice A. Asongu, 2017. "The Comparative Economics of Knowledge Economy in Africa: Policy Benchmarks, Syndromes, and Implications," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 8(2), pages 596-637, June.
    4. Simplice A. Asongu & Jacinta C. Nwachukwu, 2016. "The role of lifelong learning on political stability and non violence: evidence from Africa," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(1), pages 141-164, January.
    5. Yaw Nyarko & Kwabena Gyimah-Brempon, 2011. "Social Safety Nets: The Role of Education, Remittances and Migration," RSCAS Working Papers 2011/26, European University Institute.

    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. Gloria Clarissa O. Dzeha, 2016. "The decipher, theory or empirics: a review of remittance studies," African Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 5(2), pages 113-134.
    2. Balli, Faruk & Guven, Cahit & Balli, Hatice O. & Gounder, Rukmani, 2010. "The Role of Institutions, Culture, and Wellbeing in Explaining Bilateral Remittance Flows: Evidence Both Cross-Country and Individual-Level Analysis," MPRA Paper 29609, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Bettin, Giulia & Lucchetti, Riccardo & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2012. "Endogeneity and sample selection in a model for remittances," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 370-384.
    4. Ibrahim Sirkeci & Jeffrey H. Cohen & Dilip Ratha, 2012. "Migration and Remittances during the Global Financial Crisis and Beyond," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13092.
    5. Bang, James T. & Mitra, Aniruddha & Wunnava, Phanindra V., 2016. "Do remittances improve income inequality? An instrumental variable quantile analysis of the Kenyan case," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 394-402.
    6. Kaczmarczyk, Pawel, 2013. "Money for Nothing? Ukrainian Immigrants in Poland and their Remitting Behaviors," IZA Discussion Papers 7666, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Valerie Mueller & Chiara Kovarik & Kathryn Sproule & Agnes Quisumbing, 2015. "Migration, Gender, and Farming Systems in Asia: Evidence, Data, and Knowledge Gaps," Working Papers id:7478, eSocialSciences.
    8. Giulia Bettin, 2012. "The remittance behaviour of African diaspora in Belgium," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 157-157.
    9. Julia Bredtmann & Fernanda Martínez Flores & Sebastian Otten, 2019. "Remittances and the Brain Drain: Evidence from Microdata for Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(7), pages 1455-1476, July.
    10. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainhoa & Kuehn, Zoë, 2018. "Immigrant networks and remittances: Cheaper together?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 225-245.
    11. Joseph B. Ajefu & Joseph O. Ogebe, 2021. "The effects of international remittances on expenditure patterns of the left‐behind households in Sub‐Saharan Africa," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 405-429, February.
    12. de Brauw, Alan & Mueller, Valerie & Woldehanna, Tassew, 2013. "Motives to Remit: Evidence from Tracked Internal Migrants in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 13-23.
    13. Michael Clemens and Timothy N. Ogden, 2014. "Migration as a Strategy for Household Finance: A Research Agenda on Remittances, Payments, and Development- Working Paper 354," Working Papers 354, Center for Global Development.
    14. Ambrosius, Christian, 2012. "Are remittances a "catalyst" for financial access? Evidence from Mexican household data," Discussion Papers 2012/8, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    15. Dorsaf Sridi & Wafa Ghardallou, 2021. "Remittances and disaggregated country risk ratings in Tunisia: an ARDL approach," Middle East Development Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 191-211, January.
    16. Mondal, Ripon Kumar & Khanam, Rasheda, 2018. "The impacts of international migrants’ remittances on household consumption volatility in developing countries," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 171-187.
    17. Patrick M. Regan & Richard W. Frank, 2014. "Migrant remittances and the onset of civil war," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(5), pages 502-520, November.
    18. Apergis, Nicholas & Cooray, Arusha, 2018. "Asymmetric real exchange rates and poverty: The role of remittances," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 111-119.
    19. Efobi, Uchenna & Asongu, Simplice & Okafor, Chinelo & Tchamyou, Vanessa & Tanankem, Belmondo, 2016. "Diaspora Remittance Inflow, Financial Development and the Industrialisation of Africa," MPRA Paper 76121, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Elisabetta Lodigiani & Luca Marchiori & I-Ling Shen, 2016. "Revisiting the Brain Drain Literature with Insights from a Dynamic General Equilibrium World Model," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 557-573, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education; Migration; Remittances; Safety-Nets; Africa; O; O55; F35; F43;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • F35 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Aid
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:rsc:rsceui:2011/26. 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: RSCAS web unit (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rsiueit.html .

    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.