IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/rwirep/109.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Purpose of Remittances – Evidence from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Bauer, Thomas K.
  • Sinning, Mathias G.

Abstract

This paper examines the purpose of remittances using individual data of migrants in Germany. Particular attention is paid to migrants' savings and transfers to family members in the home country. Our findings indicate that migrants who intend to stay in Germany only temporarily have a higher propensity to save and save larger amounts in their home country than permanent migrants. A similar picture emerges when considering migrants' payments to family members abroad. The results of a decomposition analysis indicate that temporary and permanent migrants seem to have different preferences towards sending transfers abroad, while economic characteristics and the composition of households in home and host countries are less relevant.

Suggested Citation

  • Bauer, Thomas K. & Sinning, Mathias G., 2009. "The Purpose of Remittances – Evidence from Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 109, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:rwirep:109
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/29942/1/601206819.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Francine D. Blau & John W. Graham, 1990. "Black-White Differences in Wealth and Asset Composition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(2), pages 321-339.
    3. Cox, Donald & Rank, Mark R, 1992. "Inter-vivos Transfers and Intergenerational Exchange," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(2), pages 305-314, May.
    4. Rapoport, Hillel & Docquier, Frederic, 2006. "The Economics of Migrants' Remittances," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 17, pages 1135-1198, Elsevier.
    5. Carroll, Christopher D & Rhee, Byung-Kun & Rhee, Changyong, 1999. "Does Cultural Origin Affect Saving Behavior? Evidence from Immigrants," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 33-50, October.
    6. 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.
    7. Ilahi, Nadeem & Jafarey, Saqib, 1999. "Guestworker migration, remittances and the extended family: evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 485-512, April.
    8. Lucas, Robert E B & Stark, Oded, 1985. "Motivations to Remit: Evidence from Botswana," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 901-918, October.
    9. Bernheim, B Douglas & Shleifer, Andrei & Summers, Lawrence H, 1986. "The Strategic Bequest Motive," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 151-182, July.
    10. Christopher D. Carroll & Byung-Kun Rhee & Changyong Rhee, 1994. "Are There Cultural Effects on Saving? Some Cross-Sectional Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 685-699.
    11. Jorge Durand & William Kandel & Emilio Parrado & Douglas Massey, 1996. "International migration and development in mexican communities," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 33(2), pages 249-264, May.
    12. de la Briere, Benedicte & Sadoulet, Elisabeth & de Janvry, Alain & Lambert, Sylvie, 2002. "The roles of destination, gender, and household composition in explaining remittances: an analysis for the Dominican Sierra," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 309-328, August.
    13. Cox, Donald & Eser, Zekeriya & Jimenez, Emmanuel, 1998. "Motives for private transfers over the life cycle: An analytical framework and evidence for Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 57-80, February.
    14. Thomas Bauer & Mathias Sinning, 2008. "An extension of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition to nonlinear models," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 92(2), pages 197-206, May.
    15. Hoddinott, John, 1994. "A Model of Migration and Remittances Applied to Western Kenya," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 459-476, July.
    16. Cox, Donald, 1987. "Motives for Private Income Transfers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(3), pages 508-546, June.
    17. Dustmann, Christian, 1997. "Return migration, uncertainty and precautionary savings," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 295-316, April.
    18. DeVoretz, Don J. & Vadean, Florin, 2005. "A Model of Foreign-Born Transfers: Evidence from Canadian Micro Data," IZA Discussion Papers 1714, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. repec:zbw:rwidps:0049 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Funkhouser, Edward, 1995. "Remittances from International Migration: A Comparison of El Salvador and Nicaragua," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 77(1), pages 137-146, February.
    21. 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.
    22. Edgard R. Rodriguez & Susan Horton, 1995. "International Return Migration and Remittances in the Philippines," Working Papers horton-95-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    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. Katarzyna Budnik, 2011. "Temporary migration in theories of international mobility of labour," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 42(6), pages 7-48.

    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. Mathias Sinning, 2011. "Determinants of savings and remittances: empirical evidence from immigrants to Germany," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 45-67, March.
    2. Rapoport, Hillel & Docquier, Frederic, 2006. "The Economics of Migrants' Remittances," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 17, pages 1135-1198, Elsevier.
    3. Dustmann, Christian & Mestres, Josep, 2010. "Remittances and temporary migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 62-70, May.
    4. Giulia Bettin & Riccardo Lucchetti & Claudia Pigini, 2016. "State dependence and unobserved heterogeneity in a double hurdle model for remittances: evidence from immigrants to Germany," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 127, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    5. repec:zbw:rwirep:0109 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5559 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Giulia Bettin & Riccardo Lucchetti, 2016. "Steady streams and sudden bursts: persistence patterns in remittance decisions," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 263-292, January.
    8. Thomas K. Bauer & Mathias G. Sinning, 2009. "The Purpose of Remittances – Evidence from Germany," Ruhr Economic Papers 0109, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    9. Filiz Garip, 2012. "An Integrated Analysis of Migration and Remittances: Modeling Migration as a Mechanism for Selection," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 31(5), pages 637-663, October.
    10. Mduduzi Biyase & Fiona Tregenna, 2016. "Determinants of remittances in South Africa," SALDRU Working Papers 176, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    11. Katherine Meckel, 2008. "Remittance behavior among new U.S. immigrants," Working Paper Series WP-08-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    12. Zizi GOSCHIN & Monica ROMAN, 2012. "Determinants of the remitting behaviour of Romanian emigrants in an economic crisis context," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 3, pages 87-103, December.
    13. Jamal Bouoiyour & Amal Miftah, 2014. "Why do migrants remit? An insightful analysis for Moroccan case," Working papers of CATT hal-01880332, HAL.
    14. Hulya Ulku, 2012. "Remitting Behaviour of Turkish Migrants: Evidence from Household Data in Germany," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(14), pages 3139-3158, November.
    15. Jamal Bouoiyour & Amal Miftah, 2014. "Why do migrants remit? An insightful analysis for Moroccan case," Working Papers hal-01880332, HAL.
    16. Luis Miotti & El Mouhoub Mouhoud & Joel Oudinet, 2009. "Migrations And Determinants Of Remittances To Southern Mediterranean Countries: When History Matters !," Post-Print hal-00483303, HAL.
    17. repec:dau:papers:123456789/2574 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Diego Alberto Sandoval Herrera & María Fernanda Reyes Roa, 2012. "¿Por qué los migrantes envían remesas?: Repaso de las principales motivaciones microeconómicas," Borradores de Economia 10036, Banco de la Republica.
    19. Matthieu Delpierre, 2012. "The impact of liquidity constraints and imperfect commitment on migration decisions of offspring of rural households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 153-170, March.
    20. Tigran A. Melkonyan & Mr. David A. Grigorian, 2008. "Microeconomic Implications of Remittances in an Overlapping Generations Model with Altruism and Self-Interest," IMF Working Papers 2008/019, International Monetary Fund.
    21. Catia Batista & Janis Umblijs, 2016. "Do migrants send remittances as a way of self-insurance?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 68(1), pages 108-130.
    22. Christian Dustmann & Joseph-Simon Görlach, 2016. "The Economics of Temporary Migrations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(1), pages 98-136, March.
    23. Hagen-Zanker, Jessica, 2010. "Modest expectations: Causes and effects of migration on migrant households in source countries," MPRA Paper 29507, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International migration; savings; remittances;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:zbw:rwirep:109. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rwiesde.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.