UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM SELECTED ASEAN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES BY NGUYEN HAI TRA MI MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY, SEPTEMBER 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS INSTITUTE OF SOCIALSTUDIES HO CHI MINH CITY THE HAGUE VIETNAM THE NETHERLANDS VIETNAM - NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME FOR M.A IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCES ON ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM SELECTED ASEAN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS By NGUYEN HAI TRA MI Academic Supervisor: Dr. LE CONG TRU HO CHI MINH CITY, SEPTEMBER 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I declare that “The impact of remittances on economic growth: Evidence from selected Asean developing countries” is my own work. It has not been submitted to any degree at other universities. I confirm that I have made by effort and applied all knowledge for finishing this thesis in the best way.
Ho Chi Minh City, September 2014 NGUYEN HAI TRA MI i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to show my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Le Cong Tru, for invaluable comments, remarks and engagement through the learning process of the thesis. Then I would like to send my sincere thanks to Associate Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai, Dr.
Pham Khanh Nam and Dr. Luca Tasciotti for giving me helpful remarks on my TRD as well as keeping me on the right track. Last but not least, I am deeply indebted to my parents, my brothers and sisters for understanding and giving me spiritual assistance. I will wholeheartedly be grateful forever for your love.
ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT Over the last decades, remittances have been regarded as one of the important sources of financial flows to developing countries. Nevertheless, whether remittance serves economic growth or not is so far still a key empirical question. This paper attempts to examine this issue. In particular, the investigation covers seven Asean developing countries over the period of 2000 to 2011.
A logistic regression technique is employed to evaluate the impact of remittances on economic growth. To account for the inherent endogeneities in the relationship between remittances and economic growth, a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach is used. The regression results of the study show that, at best, remittances should not be treated as a source of capital flows and have a negative impact on economic growth because they are used for bad economic performance of the recipients. This suggests that policy makers should have the recipients to allocate large amount of remittances in investment as contribution to economic growth.
Key words: remittances, economic growth, Generalized Method of Moments, capital flows. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF TABLES.
vi LIST OF FIGURES. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION. Background to the Study.
Migration and Remittance flows in ASEAN countries. Justification of the study. Organization of the study .7 Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW. A definition of remittance.
Determinants of remittances. Contribution of remittances to growth. Labor force growth. Empirical literature summary .25 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY .36 Chapter 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS.
Trends of economic growth. Trends of remittances flows to selected Asean countries. Trends in remittance inflows and economic growth indicator in Asean countries. Remittances and other capital inflows.
Descriptive statistics analysis. Correlation matrix among independent variables .48 Chapter 5 CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS. Government Policy Recommendation .61 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Migrant Remittances in Asean Countries.
Summary of variables. Summary of variables (continued). GDP per capita growth rate in selected Asean countries. Static model results.
Dynamic GMM regression results .2: Remittances (% of GDP, period 2000-2011) - Descriptive statistics .3: Ordinary Least Squares .4: Fixed Effects Estimation .5: Generalized Method of Moments. 65 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Remittances, FDI, private debt & portfolio equity and ODA. Personal remittance inflows (% of GDP) in Asean countries, 2012.
Remittances effect on economic growth. GDP per capita growth rate in selected Asean countries. Trends in Remittance inflows and GPD in selected Asean countries. Remittances, Foreign direct investment and Net official development assistance and official aid (US$ billions).
46 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS FDI Foreign direct investment GMM Generalized Method of Moments ODA Official development assistances vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTION This chapter introduces the thesis topic and identifies the main issues which will be covered in the following sections. The background and motivation to the study will be introduced first. Then the research objectives and research questions will come later. The chapter will ends with the contribution of the study and the thesis structure.
Background to the Study Nowadays migration has been an increasingly crucial characteristic in the globalization world, especially for developing countries. It has been a major issue to consider by policy makers towards economic development. Under migration context, remittances, an evidence for the ties connecting migrants with their family members in the home country, have grown significantly over years. The World Bank estimates that worldwide officially recorded remittance flows reached $550 billion in 2013, in which developing countries received biggest share of these flows ($414 billion).
However, the figure does not reflect true size of remittance flows as it should be larger when there are unrecorded remittance flows through unofficial channels. Over the past three decades, remittance flows speeded up and now are expected to continue to be in the increasing trend with over $700 billion worldwide by 2016. The fast increase in remittances may result from two factors. Firstly, migration between developing and developed countries has risen significantly in the last 20 years (WorldBank, 2007).
Secondly, transactions costs for international payment transfer between individuals have declined thanks to technological improvements (Giuliano and Ruiz-Arranz, 2006). Looking at Figure 1.1, we can see that remittance flows are now nearly three times the size of official development assistance (ODA), and larger than private debt and portfolio equity flows to developing countries (WorldBank, 2013). Remittances as a source of foreign 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com currency earnings also play an increasingly important role in many emerging markets with weakening balance of payments. It is true in the case of South Asia, with India being an outstanding example.
The depreciation of the Indian rupee has boosted remittance flows that provide much support to the balance of payment of this country. With the depreciation of over 20% in the Indian rupee in 2013, the country could experience a surge in remittances flows and gain total value of US$ 71 billion (about 3.7 percent of GDP). That has made a major contribution to India’s economy (WorldBank, 2013). In addition to that, in some countries, remittances flows even accounted for more than 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
For example, in 2012, in terms of GDP share, the top of recipients of remittances were Tajikistan (48%), Kyrgyz Republic (31%), Lesotho and Nepal (25% each), and Moldova (24%) (WorldBank, 2013). As a result, remittances might have a significant impact on the welfare of recipient households, and on the growth of recipient economies. Remittances, FDI, private debt & portfolio equity and ODA Source: World Bank Development Indicators and World Bank Development Prospect Group 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Many studies have found the positive benefits of remittances on well-being of recipient households, specifically helping to reduce poverty, making consumption easier and allowing for investment in health care and education (De Haas, 2005). However, in contrast to remittance impact on recipient households, the role of remittance in economic growth has been still in debate.
In theoretical literature, the effects of remittance are mixed and complicated. On one side, researchers in favor of remittances suggest that remittances are often used for investment and enhancing financial development, leading to improved capital allocation and consequently accelerating economic growth, especially in underdeveloped financial system (Giuliano and Ruiz-Arranz, 2005). On the other hand, the others find zero or negative impact of remittance on economic growth (Barajas et al., 2009; Chami et al. They show out remittances’ reverse effect on inflation and labor market participation, and remittances also cause unnecessary appreciation of the local currency of the recipient which then leads to expensive goods produced at home and thus decreases export competitiveness (a “Dutch disease” problem).
Migration and Remittance flows in ASEAN countries ASEAN region includes 10 countries: Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The region has become an important source of migrant workers for those countries that suffer from labor shortage around the world (except Brunei Darussalam and Singapore which are two developed countries and not taken into account in this study for remittance impact on economic growth). As such, remittances sent by these migrants to their home countries have increased significantly over years. They have greatly assisted these countries to reduce the shortage of foreign exchange reserve and paid the import bills.
The migrants transfer remittances to their home countries because of their altruistic motive or investment purposes (Solimano, 2003). According to World 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Bank data, the remittance inflows to Asean countries have been rising since 2000, with an approximate 66% increase in 10 years from 2004 to 2013. The Philippines have always headed the pack in the region with estimated 26.05 US$ billion in 2013, followed by Vietnam (10.65 US$ billion), Indonesia (7.88 US$ billion), Thailand (5.32 US$ billion), Malaysia (1.48 US$ billion), Myanmar (2.51 US$ billion), Cambodia (0.28 US$ billion), Laos (0. More outstandingly, the Philippines and Vietnam stood in top 10 recipients of remittances list in 2013, together with other countries like India, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Egypt, Arab Rep., Bangladesh, Pakistan and Ukraine.
Migrant Remittances in Asean Countries Country Amount Philippines 26.29 Source: World Bank As a percentage of GDP, the Philippines ranked the first position with 9.8% of GDP in 2012, followed by Vietnam standing at the second with 7. While these significantly high shares implies large contribution of remittances in the domestic income in these two countries, remittance numbers of other countries in Asean region seem not be so much weighted in GDP, with only 1.2% for Lao PDR, 0.4% for Malaysia (see Figure 1. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Personal remittance inflows (% of GDP) in Asean countries, 2012 9,8% 10,0% 9,0% 8,0% 7,1% 7,0% 6,0% 5,0% 4,0% 3,0% 1,8% 2,0% 1,3% 1,2% 0,8% 0,4% 1,0% 0,0% Source: World Bank The leading migrant host countries are the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, Germany, and Singapore.
All of these countries have more developed economy than that of the Asean countries. This implies that the economic conditions in developed countries could create better employment opportunities and attract more migrants (Shahbaz and Aamir, 2009). Research objectives In general, the whole picture can be drawn as that, migrants usually leave their home country to work and live abroad, supporting their family members with flow of remittances. Therefore, these flows bring about direct or indirect effect on millions of people.
Remittance flows can help lift many people out of poverty because they play as a steady income to be spent on daily consumption and other necessities such as medicine and shelter. The remittance effect on poverty reduction is widely recognized (Barajas et al. Besides this effect, however, the way in which remittances contribute to economic growth is still an open question.