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Macroeconomic Determinants of Workers' Remittances and Compensation of Employees In Sub-Saharan Africa
- The Journal of Developing Areas
- Tennessee State University College of Business
- Volume 48, Number 1, Winter 2014
- pp. 337-360
- 10.1353/jda.2014.0015
- Article
- Additional Information
In this paper, an attempt has been made to identify the macroeconomic determinants of migrant remittances received in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) at the disaggregated level. The underlying motivation is that, given their unique characteristics, permanent and temporary migrants are likely to respond differently to macroeconomic conditions in migrant-host countries and their native or migrant-home countries. For the empirical analysis, the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach was used to estimate a dynamic panel-data model involving 36 SSA countries over the period, 1980-2009. It was found that the inflows of compensation of employees and workers' remittances to SSA are influenced by host-country macroeconomic conditions in a similar way, whereas these two forms of remittances are driven by contrasting home-country macroeconomic conditions. Remittances from permanent migrants are less altruistic than remittances from temporary migrants. To attract higher remittances on a more permanent basis, the implementation of stable macroeconomic and pro-growth policies are inevitable in labor-exporting SSA countries.