中低所得國家國際匯款對減輕貧困的影響

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of international remittances on poverty alleviation by using data for 65 low-and-middle-income countries from 2002 – 2016. The six poverty measurements are poverty headcount at $1.9, $3.2, and $5.5 a day, respectively, and poverty gap at $1.9, $3.2, and $5.5 a day, respectively used in this study. The main difficulty in assessing these impacts is in finding instruments to overcome the possibility of endogeneity in remittance variable. Two instrumental variables related to remittance-receiving countries, such as trade openness as a share of GDP and annual average exchange rate are used in Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) regression analysis. This technique is employed to estimate the impacts by controlling for per capita income, inequality and inflation. In general, results obtained in this study reveal that international remittance as a share of GDP significantly mitigates poverty. The results in line with expectation, therefore this study provides recommendations for the authorities, especially in remittance-receiving countries to implement policies or program in the short, medium or long term related to improving in remittance infrastructure.