Premium
Remittances and Financial Access: Is There Really a Link and for Whom? Evidence from Mexican Household Data
Author(s) -
Ambrosius Christian
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the world economy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.594
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1467-9701
pISSN - 0378-5920
DOI - 10.1111/twec.12287
Subject(s) - microfinance , economics , logit , panel data , ordered logit , empirical evidence , demographic economics , survey data collection , logistic regression , function (biology) , public economics , development economics , economic growth , econometrics , philosophy , statistics , epistemology , medicine , evolutionary biology , biology , mathematics , machine learning , computer science
In policy discussions, it has frequently been claimed that migrants' remittances could function as a ‘catalyst’ for financial access among receiving households. This paper provides empirical evidence on this hypothesis from Mexico, a major receiver of remittances worldwide. Using the Mexican Family Life Survey panel (MxFLS) for 2002 and 2005, the results from the fixed effects logit model show that receiving remittances is strongly correlated with the ownership of savings accounts and to a limited degree with the availability of borrowing options. Effects are particularly important for microfinance institutions, and more important for rural households compared to urban households.