Remittances from international migration: A review in perspective

This review explores contemporary processes through which immigrants are categorized into shifting racial landscapes in the new Europe. Tracing the racial genealogy of the immigrant through European and Europeanist migration studies, the successive construction of overlapping tropes of the nomad, the laborer, the uprooted victim, the hybrid cosmopolite, and the (Muslim) transmigrant are examined. This history points to the perduring problematization of the immigrant as the object of national integration. If migration studies have effectively tended to racialize migrants into a new savage slot, recent ethnographies of the immigrant experience in Europe point to ways in which immigrant and diasporic groups cross racial frontiers and enact solidarity across class and cultural lines.

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IMMIGRANT RACIALIZATION AND THE NEW SAVAGE SLOT: Race, Migration, and Immigration in the New Europe

The authors review the theoretical literature on the determinants of international workers' remittances and then posit an empirical model that accounts for demographic, portfolio, and macroeconomic factors that - together with special incentive policies - determine official remittances. They estimated the model using data from five major labor-exporting countries of North Africa and Europe: Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia, Turkey, and the former Yugoslavia. The econometric results strongly corroborate the model's predictions and reveal interesting policy implications. In planning for the future growth of remittances, labor-exporting countries should explicitly take into consideration the history of migration, since an aging labor force abroad will be less inclined to remit. Labor-exporting countries should also account for the economic prospects of the major labor-receiving countries and for the geographical distribution of their migrant labor. The authors' results show that remittances are significantly affected by economic policies in the home (labor-exporting) countries. Special incentive schemes cannot substitute for a stable, credible macroeconomic policy.

Determinants of expatriate workers' remittances in North Africa and Europe

"In this study we review the literature regarding the theory and the empirical evidence regarding migrants' remittance behavior, and we examine the flow and determinants of remittances from Greek migrants for the period 1961 to 1991. The main body of data is for remittances to Greece from Germany, but for some years data are available for remittances from Belgium and Sweden as well. The objective of this study is to test the significance of certain factors in terms of their effects on remittances to Greece. These factors are the migrant's income, the migrant's family income, the rate of unemployment, the rate of interest, the exchange rate, and the rate of inflation. The study attempts to see if these factors have had any effect on the volume of remittances. It also attempts to see if there are any structural changes during this period that affect migrants' propensity to remit."

Factors determining migrant remittances: the case of Greece.

This paper attempts to construct a time series estimation of remittances from abroad to the Kerala economy for the period 1972 to 2000. It is now widely acknowledged that foreign remittances in the economy of the State of Kerala in India in the form of money sent by its workers in the Gulf countries play a crucial role. The study finds that by the early nineties remittances to the Kerala economy assumed a significant share of state income. This ranged from 17 percent during 1991-92 and 24 percent during 1997-98 with an average of 22 percent for the second half of the nineties. The liberalisation of the Indian economic policies, particularly the foreign exchange rate, benefited Kerala directly. Adding the remittance income to the Net State Domestic Product, a Modified State Income series has been constructed. As a result Kerala’s per capita income not only caught up with the average per capita income for India but started exceeding it reaching 49 percent above the national average by the end of the nineties. This tallies with per capita consumer expenditure in Kerala, which was in excess of 41 percent above the national average by the end of the nineties. Remittances have also made significant impact on savings. By the nineties savings rates in the Kerala economy seem to have reached such high levels comparable to the East and South East Asian countries. The significance of remittances can also be gauged by its relative magnitudes. By the end of the nineties remittances reached such levels that they were well above the total government expenditure, value added in manufacturing and even the value added in industrial sector as a whole. JEL Classification: F22, J61

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KERALA'S GULF CONNECTION Emigration, Remittances and their Macroeconomic Impact 1972-2000

This report is a shortened version of a World Bank funded research report which highlights migrant labor flows and labor market trends in the Middle East and North Africa from 1975-85 by projecting requirements for and supply of labor at a range of occupational levels for every major country of the region. The labor market projections were made under high and low economic growth scenarios and each countrys projected domestic labor supplies were matched to the requirements. International movement of migrant workers and their dependents was then simulated. The 9 capital rich states of Algeria Bahrain Iraq Kuwait Libya Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had imported 1.6 million migrant workers by 1975 and the number is expected to increase to 4.3 million by 1985. Between 1975-85 the proportion of Arabs among migrants is projected to fall from 65% to 48% although the number of Arab migrants will double. Increasing numbers of South Asian workers and the entry of South East Asian migrants will account for the reduced proportion of Arabs. Importation of workers in the oil exporting states excluding Algerian and Iraq from the above list has enabled the transformation of traditional states into modern economies in a short time and the scale and nature of development envisaged in these states will ensure that migrant workers remain a permanent or growing presence. Despite their contributions to development there is worry in the labor importing states about the scale of importation of workers who comprise over 90% of the labor force in some of the smallest states. The migrants are increasingly bringing their families to the countries of employment which is causing the labor importing countries to question their entire strategy of development with migrant labor. Labor importing countries have some scope for action in slowing their increased use of imported labor but in only a few instances will they be able to reduce their dependence on migrant workers. Migration for employent has had a major impact on the capital poor labor exporting states of Egypt Jordan Lebanon Sudan Syria the Yemens and Oman a minor supplier but thus far the sending countries have been able to exert little control over the departure or return of labor. The departure of large numbers of workers exacerbated shortages of skilled labor raised wage levels in some occupations and aggravated inflation. Unemployment has not disappeared in labor exporting countries because of the selective nature of migration but modern sector development and sometimes the traditional sector have suffered. Despite problems the labor migration process could be working to create an integrated economic region.

Birks S

Papers

Manpower and international labor migration in the Middle East and North Africa. Final report for general distribution.