UNU-MERIT Working Papers

Working Paper #2014-004

Migration, remittances and household welfare in Ethiopia

Lisa Andersson #2014-004 PDF

This paper investigates the effect of international remittances and
migration on household welfare in Ethiopia. We employ both subjective (a
household's subjective economic well-being) and objective measures
(asset holdings and asset accumulation) to define household welfare. A
matching approach is applied to address self-selection, and by
exploiting information before and after the households began receiving
remittances, the study sheds light on the changes in welfare associated
with international migration and remittances. The results reveal that
remittances have a significant impact on a welfare variable that has
previously not received much attention in the migration literature,
namely household subjective economic well-being. In addition, we find
that remittances have positive effects on consumer asset accumulation,
especially in rural areas, but no effect on productive assets.

Keywords
  • remittances
  • migration
  • Ethiopia
  • propensity score matching
JEL codes
  • F22
  • F24
  • O15

Cite this as

APA 7th ed.

Andersson, L. (2014). Migration, remittances and household welfare in Ethiopia (UNU-MERIT Working Paper No. 2014-004). UNU-MERIT. https://unu-merit.nl/publications/working-papers/abstract/?id=5353

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