IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v48y2012i8p1139-1155.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Migration, Remittances and Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Rural Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Vera Chiodi
  • Esteban Jaimovich
  • Gabriel Montes-Rojas

Abstract

This article studies the link between migration, remittances and asset accumulation for a panel of poor rural households in Mexico over the period 1997--2006. In a context of financial markets' imperfections, migration may act as a substitute for imperfect credit and insurance provision (through remittances from migrants) and, thus, exert a positive effect on investment. However, it may well be the case that remittances are channelled towards increasing consumption and leisure goods instead. Exploiting within family variation and an instrumental variable strategy, we show that migration indeed accelerates productive assets' accumulation. However, when we look at the effect of migration on non-productive assets (durable goods), we find a negative effect. Our results then suggest that poor rural families resort to migration as a way to mitigate constraints that prevent them from investing in productive assets.

Suggested Citation

  • Vera Chiodi & Esteban Jaimovich & Gabriel Montes-Rojas, 2012. "Migration, Remittances and Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Rural Mexico," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(8), pages 1139-1155, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:48:y:2012:i:8:p:1139-1155
    DOI: 10.1080/00220388.2012.688817
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00220388.2012.688817
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1993. "Credit Market Constraints, Consumption Smoothing, and the Accumulation of Durable Production Assets in Low-Income Countries: Investment in Bullocks in India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 223-244, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Giuliano, Paola & Ruiz-Arranz, Marta, 2009. "Remittances, financial development, and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 144-152, September.
    4. Esteban Jaimovich, 2010. "Adverse Selection and Entrepreneurship in a Model of Development," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 112(1), pages 77-100, March.
    5. Alice Mesnard, 2004. "Temporary migration and capital market imperfections," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(2), pages 242-262, April.
    6. David E. Sahn & David Stifel, 2003. "Exploring Alternative Measures of Welfare in the Absence of Expenditure Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 49(4), pages 463-489, December.
    7. 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.
    8. David A. Jaeger & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Holger Bonin, 2010. "Direct Evidence on Risk Attitudes and Migration," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 684-689, August.
    9. Amartya K. Sen, 1966. "Peasants and Dualism with or without Surplus Labor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 74, pages 425-425.
    10. Alice Mesnard & Martin Ravallion, 2006. "The Wealth Effect on New Business Startups in a Developing Economy," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(291), pages 367-392, August.
    11. Das Gupta, Monica, 1987. "Informal Security Mechanisms and Population Retention in Rural India," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 101-120, October.
    12. Adams, Richard H, Jr, 1998. "Remittances, Investment, and Rural Asset Accumulation in Pakistan," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(1), pages 155-173, October.
    13. Mishra, Prachi, 2007. "Emigration and wages in source countries: Evidence from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 180-199, January.
    14. 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.
    15. Michelle Adato & Michael Carter & Julian May, 2006. "Exploring poverty traps and social exclusion in South Africa using qualitative and quantitative data," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(2), pages 226-247.
    16. Woodruff, Christopher & Zenteno, Rene, 2007. "Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 509-528, March.
    17. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
    18. Willem Molle & Aad Van Mourik, 1988. "International Movements of Labour under Conditions of Economic Integration: The Case of Western Europe," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(3), pages 317-340, March.
    19. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. repec:ags:phajad:258850 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:eee:wdevel:v:111:y:2018:i:c:p:225-245 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainhoa & Kuehn, Zoë, 2018. "Immigrant networks and remittances: Cheaper together?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 225-245.
    4. Junaid Ahmed & Mazhar Mughal & Stephan Klasen, 2018. "Great Expectations? Remittances and Asset Accumulation in Pakistan," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 507-532, April.
    5. Marcus H. Böhme, 2015. "Does migration raise agricultural investment? An empirical analysis for rural Mexico," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(2), pages 211-225, March.
    6. Katsushi S. Imai, 2017. "Roles of Agricultural Transformation in Achieving Sustainable Development Goals on Poverty, Hunger, Productivity, and Inequality," Discussion Paper Series DP2017-26, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    7. Göbel, Kristin, 2012. "Remittances and Gender-Speci fic Employment Patterns in Peru - a longitudinal Analysis," Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 65409, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Anupama, Guvvala Venkata & Bantilan, Ma. Cynthia S. & Deb, Uttam Kumar & Vajjha, Haragopal, 2016. "Seasonal Migration and Moving Out of Poverty in Rural India: Insights from Statistical Analysis," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 13(2), December.
    9. repec:spr:inrvec:v:65:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s12232-018-0305-z is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Jean-Louis Combes & Christian Hubert Ebeke & Mathilde Maurel & Urbain Thierry Yogo, 2011. "Remittances and the Prevalence of Working Poor," Working Papers halshs-00585004, HAL.
    11. repec:eee:forpol:v:101:y:2019:i:c:p:62-69 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. repec:bdr:ensayo:v:35:y:2017:i:84:p:189-202 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Gazi M. Hassan & Shafiqur Rahman, 2015. "Is the Democratisation Process Responsive to Remittance Flows? Evidence from Bangladesh," Working Papers in Economics 15/06, University of Waikato.
    14. 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.
    15. Aparicio Fenoll, Ainoa, 2011. "Network Effects on Migrants' Remittances," IZA Discussion Papers 5657, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Jean-Louis Combes & Christian Hubert Ebeke & Mathilde Maurel & Thierry Urbain Yogo, 2014. "Remittances and Working Poverty," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(10), pages 1348-1361, November.
    17. Amuedo-Dorantes, Catalina & Pozo, Susan, 2014. "When Do Remittances Facilitate Asset Accumulation? The Importance of Remittance Income Uncertainty," IZA Discussion Papers 7983, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía, 2017. "Choques externos y remesas internacionales en las regiones de Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 35(84), pages 189-202, December.
    19. Raccanello, Kristiano, 2016. "Do Microenterprises’ size and status matter to access informal finance?./ ¿El tamaño y el registro de las microempresas permite el acceso a los mercados financieros informales?," Panorama Económico, Escuela Superior de Economía, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, vol. 12(23), pages 123-152, Segundo s.
    20. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2014. "Remittance income uncertainty and asset accumulation," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-24, December.
    21. repec:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:6:p:1909-:d:151242 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Gazi M. Hassan & Mark J. Holmes, 2017. "How Do Workers' Remittances Respond to Lending Rates?," Working Papers in Economics 17/02, University of Waikato.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration

    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:taf:jdevst:v:48:y:2012:i:8:p:1139-1155. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Chris Longhurst). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.