IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2010-287.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Workers’ Remittances and the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Ralph Chami
  • Mr. Adolfo Barajas
  • Mr. Peter J Montiel
  • Ms. Dalia S Hakura

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of workers’ remittances on equilibrium real exchange rates (ERER) in recipient economies. Using a small open economy model, it shows that standard "Dutch Disease" results of appreciation are substantially weakened or even overturned depending on: degree of openness; factor mobility between domestic sectors; counter cyclicality of remittances; the share of consumption in tradables; and the sensitivity of a country’s risk premium to remittance flows. Panel cointegration techniques on a large set of countries provide support for these analytical results, and show that ERER appreciation in response to sustained remittance flows tends to be quantitatively small.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Ralph Chami & Mr. Adolfo Barajas & Mr. Peter J Montiel & Ms. Dalia S Hakura, 2010. "Workers’ Remittances and the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate: Theory and Evidence," IMF Working Papers 2010/287, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2010/287
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=24495
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri & Greg C. Wright, 2021. "Immigration, Offshoring, and American Jobs," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 10, pages 291-326, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. David Card, 1990. "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(2), pages 245-257, January.
    3. Connel Fullenkamp & Mr. Thomas F. Cosimano & Michael T. Gapen & Mr. Ralph Chami & Mr. Peter J Montiel & Mr. Adolfo Barajas, 2008. "Macroeconomic Consequences of Remittances," IMF Occasional Papers 2008/001, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Ottaviano, Gianmarco & Peri, Giovanni, 2008. "Immigration and National Wages: Clarifying the Theory and the Empirics," CEPR Discussion Papers 6916, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Raghuram G. Rajan & Arvind Subramanian, 2005. "What Undermines Aid's Impact on Growth?," NBER Working Papers 11657, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. David Card, 2005. "Is the New Immigration Really so Bad?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(507), pages 300-323, November.
    7. Giorgio Barba Navaretti & Giuseppe Bertola & Alessandro Sembenelli, 2008. "Offshoring and Immigrant Employment: Firm-level Theory and Evidence," Development Working Papers 245, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    8. Avraham Ebenstein & Ann Harrison & Margaret McMillan & Shannon Phillips, 2022. "Estimating The Impact Of Trade And Offshoring On American Workers Using The Current Population Surveys," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Globalization, Firms, and Workers, chapter 12, pages 275-289, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Mr. Martin Petri & Tahsin Saadi Sedik, 2006. "To Smooth or Not to Smooth—The Impact of Grants and Remittances on the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate in Jordan," IMF Working Papers 2006/257, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Mary Amiti & Shang‐Jin Wei, 2009. "Service Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from the US," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(2), pages 203-220, February.
    11. Mohsin S. Khan & Axel Schimmelpfennig, 2006. "Inflation in Pakistan: Money or Wheat?," SBP Research Bulletin, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department, vol. 2, pages 213-234..
    12. Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2008. "Trading Tasks: A Simple Theory of Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1978-1997, December.
    13. Lopez, Humberto & Molina, Luis & Bussolo, Maurizio, 2007. "Remittances and the real exchange rate," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4213, The World Bank.
    14. Borjas, George J, 1995. "Assimilation and Changes in Cohort Quality Revisited: What Happened to Immigrant Earnings in the 1980s?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(2), pages 201-245, April.
    15. Emmanuel K. K. Lartey & Federico S. Mandelman & Pablo A. Acosta, 2012. "Remittances, Exchange Rate Regimes and the Dutch Disease: A Panel Data Analysis," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 377-395, May.
    16. Cragg, Michael & Kahn, Matthew, 1997. "New Estimates of Climate Demand: Evidence from Location Choice," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 261-284, September.
    17. Pablo A. Acosta & Nicole Rae Baerg & Federico S. Mandelman, 2009. "Financial development, remittances, and real exchange rate appreciation," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 94(1), pages 1-12.
    18. David L. Carr & James R. Markusen & Keith E. Maskus, 2021. "Estimating The Knowledge-Capital Model of the Multinational Enterprise," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: BROADENING TRADE THEORY Incorporating Market Realities into Traditional Models, chapter 5, pages 95-110, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    19. George J. Borjas, 2021. "The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: Reexamining The Impact Of Immigration On The Labor Market," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Foundational Essays in Immigration Economics, chapter 9, pages 235-274, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Zulfiqar Hyder & Adil Mahboob, 2006. "Equilibrium Real Effective Exchange Rate and Exchange Rate Misalignment in Pakistan," SBP Research Bulletin, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department, vol. 2, pages 237-263..
    21. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2007. "A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 265-312.
    22. Yves Bourdet & Hans Falck, 2006. "Emigrants' remittances and Dutch Disease in Cape Verde," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 267-284.
    23. Runjuan Liu & Daniel Trefler, 2008. "Much Ado About Nothing: American Jobs and the Rise of Service Outsourcing to China and India," NBER Working Papers 14061, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Lone Christiansen & Alessandro Prati & Luca Antonio Ricci & Thierry Tressel, 2010. "External Balance in Low-Income Countries," NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(1), pages 265-322.
    25. 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.
    26. Ann E. Harrison & Margaret S. McMillan, 2006. "Outsourcing Jobs? Multinationals and US Employment," NBER Working Papers 12372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Faini, Riccardo, 1994. "Workers Remittances and the Real Exchange Rate: A Quantitative Framework," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 235-245.
    28. Mario Holzner, 2006. "Real Exchange Rate Distortion in Southeast Europe," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 68, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    29. Mr. Joannes Mongardini & Brett Rayner, 2009. "Grants, Remittances, and the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate in Sub-Saharan African Countries," IMF Working Papers 2009/075, International Monetary Fund.
    30. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Pozo, Susan, 2004. "Workers' Remittances and the Real Exchange Rate: A Paradox of Gifts," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1407-1417, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Montiel, Peter J & Spilimbergo, Antonio & Mishra, Prachi, 2010. "Monetary transmission in low income countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 7951, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. William W. Olney, 2012. "Offshoring, immigration, and the native wage distribution," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(3), pages 830-856, August.
    3. Mariem Brahim & Nader Nefzi & Hamed Sambo, 2017. "Remittances and the real effective exchange rates in MENA countries: What is the long run impact?," Working Papers hal-01583564, HAL.
    4. Farid Makhlouf & Mazhar Mughal, 2013. "Remittances, Dutch Disease, And Competitiveness: A Bayesian Analysis," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 38(2), pages 67-97, June.
    5. Christos Nikas & Student Anastasia Blouchoutzi, 2014. "Emigrants’ Remittances and the “Dutch Disease” in Small Transition Economies: the Case Of Albania and Moldova," Romanian Statistical Review, Romanian Statistical Review, vol. 62(1), pages 45-65, March.
    6. Abdih, Yasser & Chami, Ralph & Dagher, Jihad & Montiel, Peter, 2012. "Remittances and Institutions: Are Remittances a Curse?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 657-666.
    7. Adnan KHURSHID & Yin KEDONG & Adrian Cantemir CĂLIN & Zhaosu MENG & Naila NAZIR, 2018. "Remittances Inflows, Gain of Foreign Exchange or Trade Loss? New Evidence from Low, Lower-Middle and Middle-Income Groups," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 20-41, December.
    8. Peter J. Montiel & Luis Servén, 2008. "Real Exchange Rates, Saving and Growth: Is there a Link?," Department of Economics Working Papers 2010-18, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    9. Hao, Linna & Ahmad, Shabbir & Chang, Hsu-Ling & Umar, Muhammad, 2021. "Knowledge spill-over and institutional quality role in controlling Dutch disease: A case of BRICS countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    10. Christopher P. Ball & Claude Lopez & Javier Reyes, 2013. "Remittances, Inflation and Exchange Rate Regimes in Small Open Economies," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 487-507, April.
    11. Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano & Giovanni Peri & Greg C. Wright, 2021. "Immigration, Offshoring, and American Jobs," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 10, pages 291-326, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Gazi M. Hassan & Mark J. Holmes, 2013. "Remittances and the real effective exchange rate," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(35), pages 4959-4970, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Farid Farid, 2014. "The impact of exchange rate policy on remittances in Morocco: A Threshold VAR analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(4), pages 2351-2360.
    15. Sarah Lynne Salvador Daway-Ducanes & Maria Socorro Gochoco-Bautista, 2019. "Manufacturing and Services Growth in Developing Economies: ‘Too Little’ Finance?," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 19(1), pages 55-82, January.
    16. Tomasz Serwach, 2022. "The European Union and within-country income inequalities. The case of the New Member States," Working Papers hal-03548416, HAL.
    17. Marcus H. Böhme & Sarah Kups, 2017. "The economic effects of labour immigration in developing countries: A literature review," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 335, OECD Publishing.
    18. Combes, Jean-Louis & Ebeke, Christian, 2011. "Remittances and Household Consumption Instability in Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1076-1089, July.
    19. Ujjal Protim Dutta & Partha Pratim Sengupta, 2018. "Remittances and Real Effective Exchange Rate," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 19(1), pages 124-136, March.
    20. Mr. Joannes Mongardini & Brett Rayner, 2009. "Grants, Remittances, and the Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate in Sub-Saharan African Countries," IMF Working Papers 2009/075, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; remittance flow; remittance inflow; remittance receipt; workers' remittance; traded goods;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements

    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:imf:imfwpa:2010/287. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.