Trade Research - ImagebankContents

About

Countries

Data & Research

Learning

News

Projects & Operations

Publications

Topics

Home > Data & Research > Research > Programs > Trade Research > ImagebankContents

Remittances, consumption and investment in Ghana

Author:	Adams, Richard H., Jr.; Cuecuecha, Alfredo; Page, John;	Collection Title:	Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4515
Country:	Ghana;	Date Stored:	2008/02/12
Document Date:	2008/02/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	Africa
Report Number:	WPS4515	SubTopics:	Access to Finance; Remittances; Debt Markets; ; Population Policies
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: This paper uses a new, nationally-representative household survey from Ghana to analyze within a rigorous econometric framework how the receipt of internal remittances (from within Ghana) and international remittances (from African or other countries) affects the marginal spending behavior of households on a broad range of consumption and investment goods, including food, education and housing. Contrary to other studies, which find that remittances are spent disproportionately on consumption (food and consumer goods/durables) or investment goods (education and housing), the findings show that households receiving remittances in Ghana do not spend more at the margin on food, education and housing than households with similar income levels and characteristics that do not receive remittances. When the analysis controls for endogeneity and selection bias, the findings show that any differences in the marginal spending behavior between remittance-receiving and non-receiving households are explained completely by the observed and unobserved characteristics of households. Households in Ghana treat remittances just like any other source of income, and there are no changes in marginal spending patterns for households with the receipt of remittance income.


Official Documents Official, scanned versions of documents (may include signatures, etc.)
File Type		Description	File Size (mb)

	PDF 50 pages	Official version*	0.31
	Text	Text version**

* The official version is derived from scanning the final, paper copy of the document and is the official,
archived version including all signatures, charts, etc.

** The text version is the OCR text of the final scanned version and is not an accurate representation of the final text.
It is provided solely to benefit users with slow connectivity.

Permanent URL for this page: http://go.worldbank.org/ZYPQIDCSC0