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We investigate the relationship between remittances, financial sector development, institutions, and economic growth in a panel of 15 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) over the period 2000-2017. The empirical evidence is based on the Two-Stage Least Squares Instrumental Variable (2SLS-IV) estimator, which provided two main findings. First, measures of remittances themselves had negative and significant effects on economic growth in the ECOWAS sub-region. The interactive effects of remittances and measures of financial sector development promote growth in the sub-region, thus supporting the complementarity hypothesis. Second, measures of institutional quality had positive and significant effects on the growth of countries in the ECOWAS area. Meanwhile, the interactive terms of remittances and institutional quality show support for the substitutability hypothesis. Therefore, remittances substitute for the presence of weak institutions in the ECOWAS area. Based on the preceding, we suggest the need for ECOWAS countries to further broaden the roles of financial sector institutions inside the remitting process to enhance savings mobilisation and channel the remitted funds into productive and growth-enhancing activities. Moreover, policymakers in ECOWAS countries need to strengthen governance institutions, which could increase the developmental benefits of remittances.

This paper aims to advance an understanding of the flows of remittances resulting from Albanian migration before and after coronavirus, their impact on the country’s development and ways to mitigate the effects of the pandemic and ensure resilience of remittance families in Albania. Over the years, migrants’ remittances have played an important role in the social and economic development of Albania and Albanian families. The health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is expected to reshape our economy and could be devastating for migrants too. This pandemic is expected to change the context for international migration and potentially cause a decrease in remittances from Albanian migrants. And yet, surprisingly, there is a lack of effective mechanisms, policies, and recovery paths for increasing the positive impact of remittances on the country's development. The paper suggests that the way remittances are managed is important. Based on the context of Albania, remittances can be encouraged and facilitated through developing private-public-people partnerships, lowering costs, and using them for entrepreneurial initiatives rather than consumption. The key contributions of the paper lie in extending discussions of the value of collecting data on remittances, providing a dynamic view of the multiplicity of factors behind remittances.

This article explores the role of remittances in Eritrea’s transnational authoritarian system. The government exercises a policy of active control over Eritrean citizens living abroad, and the country’s economy relies heavily on private remittances to ensure the subsistence of the population. This stands in stark contrast to the official doctrine of economic self-reliance, which has been hampered by an open-ended national service that can last for decades and deprives Eritrean citizens in productive age from making a living. The government also puts extreme restraints on the private sector. As a result, the livelihoods of Eritreans depend mostly on diaspora remittances. The authors take a historically contextualised approach based on empirical fieldwork in Eritrea from the 1990s to 2010 and among Eritrean diaspora communities in Europe between 2013 and 2019. We demonstrate how the government’s self-reliance approach has shifted from developing Eritrea’s human capital to securing financial support through transnational diaspora control. We conclude that in the case of Eritrea, the process of diasporisation has not triggered development and political transformation but has cemented a political and economic status quo that forces ever-growing parts of the population to leave.

Inward remittances (REM) are playing a major part in the economic growth process in the East Asia and Pacific region. Among the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), six are low middle income countries (LMICs), which are supported by growing annual remittances from the rest of the world as well as four members of ASEAN, namely Brunei and Singapore, which are, two high income countries; and two upper middle income countries namely Malaysia and Thailand. Aside from augmenting real resources in the form of foreign exchange reserves, REM contributes to the alleviation of poverty by supplementing the recipient households’ incomes. Among the six LMICS of ASEAN, three countries, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, known as transitional countries since the mid-1990s towards a full market regime, received much less attention from researchers due to the inadequate number of annual data series for empirical studies. This paper is an attempt to fill the gap by a panel econometric study on REM and growth nexus during the 18-year period (2000-17). The findings are: (i) the REM inflows have been promoting economic growth; and (ii) the spread of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has had a positive and significant influence, thereby confirming the similar finding of studies elsewhere that ICT plays an effective contingent role in the remittance-growth nexus.

About Remittances Review Journal and the current issue content

Migration is typically portrayed as an effective response to socio-economic hardship. Pushed by a lack of work at home and pulled by the promise of higher wages abroad, people relocate.  When those moves succeed, migrants transfer money home (Yang, 2015).  A logical, predictable system that is confirmed by evidence as well as World Bank figures noting migrants returned a record $689 billion globally in 2018; and while researchers expected the pandemic to push down wages, the decline to this point has been modest.  Remittances continued apace and serve to cushion the impacts of the pandemic (Ratha et al., 2021).  Nevertheless, the assumption that the decision to migrate is straight-forward misses how socially complex the processes can be, particularly during the pandemic (Pintor Sandoval and Bojorquez Luque, 2021, Marwah and Ramanayake 2021, Gupta et al., 2021).

The aim of this paper is to examine the interdependence between the decision to invest in entrepreneurship and the receipt of remittances. Firstly, a conceptual framework is developed within the household utility-maximisation model, wherein households are seen to make decisions on entrepreneurship and remittances simultaneously. Guided by this, the model is specified and estimated, employing the seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model upon a random sample stemming from the Kosovo population census. The findings suggest broad support for the household approach. As expected, the two decisions are simultaneously determined and, while remittances have a positive impact on entrepreneurship, no evidence is found for the statistical importance of migration. Household entrepreneurial behaviour is determined by demographic characteristics, income, relative wealth, education, and type of area.

This article analyses socioeconomic changes with reference to income, consumption, expenditure, health, and education of migrant households in relation to remittances flows. This study is based on a case study of Musaharniya village in Rajbiraj Municipality of Saptari District, Province 2, Nepal. It is found that remittances play a vital role in improving the socioeconomic condition, reducing poverty and bringing social and political awareness in the village. Those households whose family members are not abroad are poorer than those with migrant members abroad. Due to increasing incomes, their expenditure capacity has considerably risen over time. All migrant households have owned land whereas one-third of households were landless in the past. Access to modern technologies has significantly increased among remittance recipient households compared to non-remittances households. Remittances were also causing migration from rural to urban centres to some extent.

Migrant remittances are critical elements of the economic development agenda in many parts of the world. Extending dual citizenship to emigrants has been suggested as government policy to encourage and stabilize migrants’ financial transfers. This essay theorizes the causal relationship between passports and pennies, or between citizenship policies and transnational economic activities, such as remittances. It reads the conceptualizations from a grounded theory study on the effects of status passages related to citizenship, as well as findings from economic sociology into the micro-economic literature on the determinants of remittances. Based on a study of India’s diasporic membership status, the Overseas Citizenship of India, the essay shows that four principal effects—the rights, identity, naturalization and good-will effect—affect various populations differently. The conceptualizations serve to generate empirically grounded hypotheses about the relationship between economic transfers and citizenship status, as well as to understand the underlying (and sometimes competing) mechanisms.

Following the Great Recession of 2007-2009 in the United States, Mexican migrants’ remittances began to grow steadily in 2014 until they reached a historical level of US$36 billion in 2019. This figure was at US$4 billion in March 2020 when Mexico had been suffering the effects of COVID-19 for one month. In April, remittances from Mexican migrants in the United States dropped 28%, as their unemployment rate reached 17%. Recuperating remittance levels will depend on economic recovery policies in the United States, and on reducing unemployment for Mexican migrants in the sectors where they have the biggest presence.

During the Pandemic, the World Bank estimations suggested that remittances globally would fall about 20 per cent. The live results show mixed reactions and IMF reports show significant resilience in some corridors. This is in line with our earlier studies and predictions. Regulations and restrictions keep remittances costs high and particularly higher in some corridors involving poorer countries. There are already calls to reduce the costs and make sending money home easier and attractive. In this issue of Remittances Review, Fernando César Costa Xavier discusses the terminology of irregular remittances with a particular reference to the Venezuelan immigrants’ money sending practices. Sena Kimm Gnangnon shows the effect of remittances inflows on public finance by examining the effect of remittances inflows on fiscal space using a sample of 109 receiving countries over the period 1980-2015. The last paper by Rodolfo García Zamora and Selene Gaspar Olvera shows that Mexican migrants’ remittances from the US had been suffering the effects of COVID-19 in April 2020.

The inflow of international remittances to Kerala has been increasing over the last three decades. It has increased the income of recipient households and enabled them to spend more on human capital investment. Using data from the Kerala Migration Survey-2010, this study analyses the impact of remittance receipts on the households’ healthcare expenditure and access to private healthcare in Kerala. This study employs an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of remittances receipts. The empirical results show that remittance income has a positive and significant impact on households’ healthcare expenditure and access to private healthcare services. After disaggregating the sample into different heterogeneous groups, this study found that remittances have a greater effect on lower-income households and Other Backward Class (OBC) households but not Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) households, which remain excluded from reaping the benefit of international migration and remittances.

Transnational activities of refugees in the Global North have been long studied, while those of the Global South, which host the majority of displaced people, have not yet received adequate scholarly attention. Drawing from refugee studies, transnationalism and diaspora studies, the article focuses on the emerging transnational practices and capabilities of displaced Syrians in Turkey. Relying on qualitative data drawn from interviews in Şanlıurfa – a border province in south-eastern Turkey that hosts half a million Syrians - the paper demonstrates the variations in the types and intensity of Syrians’ transnational activities and capabilities. It describes the low level of individual engagement of Syrians in terms of communicating with relatives and paying short visits to the hometowns as well as the intentional disassociation of young refugees from homeland politics. At the level of Syrian grassroots organisations, there have been mixed engagement initiatives emerging out of sustained cross-border processes. Syrians with higher economic capital and secured legal status have formed some economic, political, and cultural institutional channels, focusing more on empowerment and solidarity in the receiving country than on plans for advancement in the country of origin. Institutional attempts are not mature enough and can be classified as transnational capabilities, rather than actual activities that allow for applying pressure on the host and home governments. This situation can be attributed to the lack of political and economic security in the receiving country as well as no prospects for the stability in the country of origin. The study also concerns questions about the conceptual debates on the issue of refugee diaspora. Whilst there are clear signs of diaspora formation of the Syrian refugee communities, perhaps it is still premature to term Syrians in Turkey as refugee diaspora.

This article investigates empirically how export revenue in migrants' host-countries influences the aggregate amount of remittances sent by migrants from these countries to their home-countries. It further investigates how the volatility of export revenue in migrants' host countries affects the volatility of the amount of remittances sent by migrants. The empirical analysis has been carried out on a panel dataset comprising 23 developed countries over the period 1975-2016. Using the fixed effects estimator, it has shown that a rise in export revenues is associated with a higher amount of remittances sent by migrants to their home-countries. Furthermore, higher volatility of export revenue generates a higher volatility of the amount of remittances sent. These findings have two policy implications. First, by improving the business environment for their exporting firms, and devising domestic policies that help reduce the volatility of export revenue, policymakers in the host-countries of migrants (mainly here, developed countries) would allow higher amounts of remittances to accrue from these countries to their home-countries. These remittances are well known to be critical for the promotion of economic growth and development of the home-countries of migrants.

This article explores the trade policy effect of remittances inflows, notably through three main channels, including trade imbalances, financial development and economic growth. The analysis uses a sample of 135 countries over the period 1996-2016. The findings suggest that remittances inflows induce trade policy liberalization, and the magnitude of this positive effect on trade policy liberalization is higher for less advanced countries, including poor countries than for relatively advanced countries. Furthermore, results suggest that the effect of remittances inflows on trade policy depends on countries' levels of trade imbalances, their financial development depth and their economic growth rate.

BOOK REVIEW: Call for reconciliation: Muslim faith and French Republic’s values by Tareq Oubrou. [Appel à la réconciliation: foi musulmane et valeurs de la République française], Tribune Libre, Plon, 2019, 360p. ISBN-13: 978-2259268431. Reviewed by Hélène Syed Zwick

This article tackles the relationship between Turkish-Belgian families with the Flemish society, within the specific context of their experiences with early childhood education and care (ECEC) system in Flanders. Our findings are based on a focus group with mothers in the town of Beringen. The intercultural dimension of the relationships between these families and ECEC services is discussed using the Interactive Acculturation Model (IAM). The acculturation patterns are discussed under three main headlines: language acquisition, social interaction and maternal employment. Within the context of IAM, our findings point to some degree of separationism of Turkish-Belgian families, while they perceive the Flemish majority to have an assimilationist attitude. This combination suggests a conflictual type of interaction. However, both parties also display some traits of integrationism, which points to the domain-specificity of interactive acculturation.

It is evident that generational shifts in tourist behaviour facilitate the anticipation and accommodation of future trends in the industry. Although a unique and influential tourist segment, the millennial generation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has not been adequately researched. This paper aims to explore the travel patterns of Emirati millennials; particularly their preferences, their online travel behaviour and the impact of social media on their choices. After reviewing the academic and trade literature on millennial travelers and some cases of existing innovative practices of tourism businesses targeting millennials, the paper will present the results of a survey conducted to investigate the travel patterns of young Emirati travelers, contributing to the literature on this emerging segment which is almost nonexistent. The research offers useful insights into what Emiratis value the most, their preference for leisure travel to new destinations and the influence of travel apps and social media on their travel planning. The research led to the development of suggestions for businesses aiming to attract millennials.

Remittance flows in many developing countries have proved to be a lifeline to millions of households as well as the economies of many developing countries. Remittances have contributed a significant portion of GDPs in many countries. For example, remittances contribute about 50 per cent to Tajikistan’s GDP. As the volume of international migration increased substantially over the recent decades so did the volume of remittances. This is slightly slower than the past, for example, from 1970 to 2015, remittances increased by more than 500 per cent (see Ullah, 2017). However, it was proven that remittances were resilient to crises. The themes of the papers the current issue of Remittance Review include are geographically wide and thematically deep. The authors paid attention to a range of interesting dimensions of remittances i.e. how remittances become a development actor; interplay between remittances and growth and how remittances appear to diversify income sources in rural communities.

Except for emergencies and for technical assistance for raising skills and institution building, foreign aid to Pacific island countries (PICs) for budgetary support has been phased out since the late 1990s. Because of the small sized domestic markets, foreign direct investment (FDI) is small and is confined to development of tourism infrastructure. On the other hand, inward remittances received from the rising number of islanders migrating overseas for work are increasing, far exceeding aid and FDI. However, influence of remittances on economic growth depends on financial sector development (FSD) for mobilizing the savings from the remittance receipts for domestic investment. This paper assesses the role of FSD in the nexus between remittances and economic growth through a panel study of five major PICs, namely Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu. The study findings show that the ongoing efforts for strengthening FSD have to be stepped up by focusing on financial inclusion through spread of branchless banking and promotion of information and communication technology.

This paper provides the contribution of remittance income for agriculture and rural development in Fiji at the micro-level analysis using the most recent household survey data available. On the contrary to general belief that remittances are mostly used for food consumption amongst households in the Pacific islands, the empirical results show that remittances have alternative uses by the households in Fiji. In particular, it sheds light on remittances as a driver for pro-poor agricultural production and diversification.

Globalization has led to a plethora of temporary, seasonal and transient jobs characterized by poor work conditions, tolerated by workers with the hope that such jobs will lead to better positions. Yet, it is not uncommon to find workers that spend years in temporary positions. Examining a cadre of cruise crew members from the Balkans who have repeatedly occupied transient jobs, this study addresses the underpinning discourses of savings, care and human capital that serve both to sustain and to entrap workers in transient positions. The ability to save and remit savings to their families allow transient workers to engage in “middling” back home, saving money to invest in homes, businesses or mobility capital. However, structural constraints on labor markets and a disconnect from local networks limit their ability to reach their goals and leverage their time on board to secure more permanent jobs, prompting the workers to repeatedly return to their temporary seafarer positions.

In the past decade, several psychiatrist-novelists established a niche for themselves in Turkish literature and their works draw interest from both their particular readership and the broader literary circles. It is not unusual for the members of a medical field that is preoccupied with understanding the psyche through personal narratives to turn toward a realm that have similar motivations. However, the limited number of such writers globally renders this trend in Turkish literature unique. Furthermore, the works of these psychiatrist-novelists stand out with their pushing the boundaries of the real in various ways. Narratives of pathology, science, and fantasy predominate their ouvre. This article argues that the high number of psychiatrist-novelists in contemporary Turkish literature and their preference over narratives that challenge the concept of reality are related to their profession. It discusses how their personal and professional experiences in medicine manifest as a key influence in their creative endeavours.

Although it is the world’s largest recipient of remittances, India lacks information about the investment behavior of its remittance receiving households. Using data from Reserve Bank of India and the Tobit analysis, this paper examines how remittances, different household and migrant characteristics have affected both the propensity to invest and the amount of investment by the remittance receiving households. The findings have significant implications for policy purposes. For example, government programs can create incentives for older migrants to have more remittance transfers. Remittance money used for children’s education could be matched to create robust flow of educational investments.

The World Bank’s latest brief on migration and development launched in October 2017 revealed that remittances to developing countries comprising three quarters of the total global remittance flows are set to grow about 4.8% to reach $450 billion. This is seemingly a reflection of the economic growth recorded in Europe and North America. Therefore not surprising to see the receiving countries in this period will be the migrant sending countries to these destinations. Hence India continues to be the top recipient. As we have analysed in the case of remittances from the UK (See Sirkeci and Privara, 2017), cost of sending money to the poorest parts of the world is the most expensive while overall remittance costs remain very high in contrast to the target of 3%, the Sustainable Development Goal. The World Bank brief pins the high cost down to exclusive deals between post offices and money transfer operators in certain countries and the security concerns resulting in higher processing costs for the operators and banks. This is very relevant to the discussions presented in this issue of Remittances Review investigating Hawala system in the Gulf countries and the use of virtual currencies in cross border money transfers. Both trends are benefiting from high costs of traditional money transfer methods via banks and money transfer operators.

Migrating into Financial Markets, How Remittances Became a Development Tool by Matt Bakker, Chicago: University of California Press, 2015, pp. 283, ISBN: 9780520285460.Over the last three decades scholars and policy makers have made efforts to evaluate the potential for international remittance transfers as the tool for economic development in the context of different countries and for different time periods. There is evidence that remittances increase student retention rate in El Salvador (Edwards and Ureta 2003) and remittances increase investment in entrepreneurship (McCormick and Wahba 2001, Dustman and Kirchman 2002, Woodruff and Zenteno 2007 and Mesnard 2004). Taylor, Rozelle and Brauw (2003) have reported increased expenditure on agricultural investment.

Remittance inflows have been recorded as the second major external source of finance after ODA and an important source of funds for growth in South Asian countries. This paper examines the interaction between remittances and development in South Asia. Most receiving countries have experienced a major increase in remittance inflows and increase in growth of their GDP. The migration-development nexus is drawn, however, generally on the contribution of migrants’ remittances to the GDP of receiving countries. While this contribution could no way be undermined, the calculation of this contribution is largely done by excluding some significant factors such as loan-with high interest; opportunity cost; remittances fee; risks and life lost. There are arguments that the entire amount of remittances channelled into South Asian countries does not go to development. Though there is huge potential to contribute to the development, South Asia did not fully benefit from migrant remittances. This is may be because of the fact that channelling remittances, uses of it and lack of financial sector development have thwarted the potential

In this article, we cast some doubts on contemporary initiatives to formalise remittance channels by focusing on particular dynamics of the informal ‘malayisha’ system on the South Africa/Zimbabwe remittance corridor. We stress the socially embedded character of ‘omalayisha’ in some rural societies by demonstrating that the system is built on strong social and community relations of friendship, neighbourhood, kinship and referrals, and the development of strategic networks of state officials. We also seek to draw parallels between the historical movement of remittances from the cities to rural societies and the contemporary system of ‘omalayisha’. Our argument suggest that ‘omalayisha’ are inherently part of the contemporary worker-peasant economy after the relocation and expansion of urban livelihoods to South African cities, and that their position in these societies extends beyond mere labour reproduction to accumulation and survival questions.

Migrants remit money, goods and commodities, as well as ideas and behaviors that affect sending countries, positively or negatively. It is not enough to study and track the flow of monetary remittances, which we admit its importance, but they also should give more attention to the study of the impact of socio-cultural remittances which may play an important role, negative or positive, in reshaping societies. This study aims at exploring both types of remittances, monetary and non-monetary remittances, and assesses their impact on Egypt.

The articles included in this issue of Remittance Review reinforce our continued efforts in maturation of theory in the study of remittance practices (see Sirkeci, Cohen, Ratha, 2012 and Ratha and Sirkeci, 2010). The themes addressed go well beyond concerns with the physical nature of remittances, direction of flows and outcomes of remittance practices in an economic vacuum. In fact, the authors whose articles are included here, work from the belief that remittances are best understood within a political economy framework that emphasizes global market forces, pays careful attention to how remittances are embedded in culture and society, and recognizes how remittances as well as migration influence, and are influenced by, kinship.

Amongst the three kinds of non-debt creating capital transfers, welcomed by capital-short Pacific island countries (PICs) for supplementing their limited domestic savings, remittances presently top the list, the other two being foreign aid and foreign direct investment. Remittances help poor families, reducing poverty. In the long run, however, the contribution of remittances to growth in output and economic development is contingent upon financial sector development (FSD). PICs are now fostering financial sector development by promoting greater financial inclusion. This paper seeks to assess the role of FSD in the nexus between remittances and output by undertaking an empirical study of Fiji.

This article presents critical analysis of a recent "financial democracy" initiative carried out collaboratively between agencies of the Mexican and US governments. The significant governmental work that officials put into the design of a low-cost remittance transfer service, marketing that service to banks and credit unions, and encouraging migrants to use it are described and analyzed. Despite all this effort, the service has not been taken up by large numbers of migrants; different explanations for these dismal results are discussed. The article concludes by emphasizing the value of the type of critical remittances research presented and suggesting a new critical research agenda.

International migration involves the movement of people over national borders, while international trade deals with the production of goods or services in one country and their consumption in another. Economic theory assumes that migration and trade are substitutes, so that freer trade between countries with different wage levels should reduce voluntary migration as trade leads to convergence in wages. However, free-trade agreements can produce a migration hump as the pace of change accelerates and economies adjust, as migration increases before investment creates enough jobs to generate stay-at-home development despite remittances from migrants abroad. Efforts to deal with the root causes of migration must be aware of potential migration humps.

This paper reports the results from Gallup’s global analysis of the likelihood of first-generation migrants, second-generation migrants and the native-born to send financial help in the form of money or goods to others inside or outside their respective country of residence. The findings in this paper are based on more than 450,000 interviews conducted through Gallup’s World Poll in 157 countries in 2012, 2013 and 2014. The sample includes more than 26,000 first-generation migrants and more than 20,000 second-generation migrants. The large sample enables Gallup to analyze first-generation migrants by the duration of their stay in their adopted country and compare their remittance behaviors with second-generation migrants and the native-born.

Remittances Review is a new journal that offers a quality outlet for exchanges between academics, researchers, and policy makers. There are more journals dealing with migration than ever before, and most have similar mandates to publish research for researchers. There has been a proliferation of journals in migration studies in the last five to ten years. However, most have grown with similar mandates that replicate breadth and interests. Remittances Review is the first international academic peer reviewed journal dedicated to money transfers, migrant remittances and the challenges and issues related to these flows across borders. Remittances Review invites contributions that include new data, rigorous research, and thoughtful analysis. We expect quality contributions that advance theory and methods as well as drawing implications for policy and practice. Readers will benefit from cutting edge research conceptual innovations, and reviews and reports.

The Remittance Landscape: Spaces of Migration in Rural Mexico and Urban USA by Sarah Lynn Lopez, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015, pp. 336, ISBN: 978-022620281-5.Migrant Remittances in South Asia: An Introduction edited by Md Mizanur Rahman, Tan Tai Yong, A K M Ahsan Ullah, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014, pp. 302, ISBN: 978-1-137-35079-4.

Professor Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan is a Yezidi transcultural psychologist. He is the Head of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction at the State University Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In that capacity he has made frequent visits to the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, as part of a project aiming to provide psychological aid to Yezidi women who escaped after being captured and enslaved by ISIS. Under ISIS, Yezidis suffered mass killings, forced conversion to Islam, torture, sexual slavery, and the abuse of their children as ISIS soldiers. In an interview with Khanna Omarkhali, Professor Kizilhan discusses his recent experiences.Keywords: Transformation of tradition; traumatized Yezidis; Yezidi women; ISIS; slavery.Abstract in KurmanjiVeguherînên di nerîtên êzdiyatiyê de piştî êrîşên DAIŞêHevpeyvînek ligel Ilhan KizilhanProfesor Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan derûnnasekî transkulturî yê êzdî ye. Li Almanyayê, li Zanîngeha Dewletî ya Baden-Württembergê, serokê beşa Tendurustiya Derûnî û Muptelayiyê ye. Bi vî sifetî wî gelek caran serdana Herêma Kurdistanê ya Iraqê kiriye di çarçoveya projeyekê de ya bi armanca dabînkirina piştgiriya psîkolojîk bo jinên Êzidî yên ji destê DAIŞê xelas bûne piştî ku hatine revandin û bûne kole. Di bin hukmê DAIŞê de, cemaeta êzdî rastî qirkirinên girseyî, koletiya cinsî û îşkenceyê hatin, û bi darê zorê dînê wan hate guhertin bo Îslamê û zarokên wan bi zorê bûne leşkerên DAIŞê. Di hevpeyvînekê de bi Khanna Omarkhali re Profesor Kizilhan behsa tecrubeyên xwe yên vê dawiyê dike.Abstract in Sorani

This case study looks at the development of a money transfer company in a dynamic and fast changing market. Transnational nature of the business as well as profiles of customers are emphasised. Ria Money Transfer is part of the Euronet, US based parent company. Aspiring to become the most progressive company in the sector, Ria deals with customers with backgrounds from all over the world. This is also reflected in the work force of the company. Operating in distinct environments, businesses are not only concerned with a multicultural body of customers, agents and clients but also multiple economic, political, technological environments with a large number of small and big competitors. This case study alludes to the questions about the key drivers of success for a transnational company with such complex web of markets, consumers, clients and competitors. Company information, direct quotes from representatives and media are used to illustrate aspects of the business and markets.

Macedonia has a large diaspora, a high emigration rate and receives larger volume of remittances. This paper aims to describe the current inclination to emigrate from Macedonia, in the light of the dissatisfaction with the domestic political and economic environment and the potential feeling of gender and ethnic inequalities. Particular reference is made to the role of remittances. We use the Remittances Survey 2008 and treat dissatisfaction, feeling of inequality and inclination to emigrate as latent continuous variables in a MIMIC (Multiple-Indicator Multiple-Cause) model, observed only imperfectly in terms of respondents’ perceptions and opinions. Results suggest that dissatisfaction with the societal conditions in Macedonia grows among those who are at their 20s and early 30s, which is more prevalent among ethnic Albanians. Compared to others, Albanians also demonstrate stronger feeling of gender and ethnic inequality. Dissatisfaction, but not the feeling of inequality, then feeds inclination to emigrate. Further to this, however, males and less educated persons are more inclined to emigrate, irrespective of their level of dissatisfaction. We find remittances to play a strong role for the inclination to emigrate: the inclination is larger in households receiving remittances and increases with the amount received, as it is likely that remittances alleviate financial constraints for other persons of the household to emigrate.

This article attempts to assess empirically the impact of remittances on household expenditure and relative poverty in Morocco. We apply propensity score matching methods to the 2006/2007 Moroccan Living Standards Measurement Survey. We find that migrants’ remittances can improve living standards among Moroccan households and affect negatively the incidence of poverty. The results show a statistically significant and positive impact of hose remittances on recipient households’ expenditures. They are also significantly associated with a decline in the probability of being in poverty for rural households; it decreases by 11.3 percentage points. In comparison, this probability decreases by 3 points in urban area.

This paper analyses the macroeconomic determinants of remittances to India and assesses the impact of the current global slowdown on these flows. The paper shows that remittances exhibit a strong trend, whereby they have increased at a robust rate of 10 per cent a year since 1992. The movement of remittances is limited around the trend and traditionally has not been affected by the domestic or external macroeconomic variables. This pattern has changed since 2000, when the remittances have responded positively to the domestic interest rates and the Indian stock market; and negatively to the external interest rates. Looking ahead, a slowdown in the economic growth rate in advanced economies is unlikely to reduce the flow of remittances to India in the short term; but a prolonged slowdown, if it significantly reverses the migration of Indians, can reduce the trend growth rate.

Inward remittances have been a great support to Pacific Island Countries, including Tonga. Aside from being a major source of foreign exchange earnings, they supplement domestic savings and real resources. This paper examines the role of remittances in the economic growth of Tonga’s during a 28 year period (1981-2007).

Workers’ remittances to developing countries have substantially increased over the past decade, both globally and in sub-Saharan Africa. They have been argued to be shock absorbers, increasing when home economies face economic difficulties and have been shown to alleviate poverty. During economic downturns, however, migrant workers are often the most vulnerable. As migrants lose their incomes or even their jobs, the global scope of the current crisis may turn remittances into a shock transmitter. Faced by this perspective, what can home countries do to shelter themselves? This paper investigates the determinants of remittances in sub-Saharan Africa and suggests some possible policy responses.

Before the global financial crisis, Tajikistan was a major labour exporting and the world’s most remittances-dependent country. Remittances had contributed to a remarkable reduction in poverty. This paper exploits a new panel data set spanning the years 2007 to 2009 in order to investigate the effect of the financial crisis on migration and remittances patterns. Expectedly, the economic recession in the main destination country Russia affected Tajikistan through declining remittances. Owing to low diversification in pre-crisis migration patterns, the dependency on sending migrants to Russia and the migration stock there grew. In combination with increased migration risk this suggests that migrants bear part of the cost of the crisis.

The financial crisis has highlighted the need for forecasts of remittance flows in many developing countries where these flows have proved to be a lifeline to the poor people and the economy. This note describes a simple methodology for forecasting country-level remittance flows in a manner consistent with the medium-term outlook for the global economy. Remittances are assumed to depend on bilateral migration stocks and income levels in the host country and the origin country. Changes in remittance costs, shifts in remittance channels, global exchange rate movements and unpredictable immigration controls in the migrant-destination countries pose risks to the forecasts. Much remains to be done to improve the forecast methodology, data on bilateral flows, and high-frequency monitoring of migration and remittance flows.

This study estimates a Keynesian simultaneous, dynamic macro-econometric model to investigate the impact of remittances on key macro variables such as consumption, investment, imports and income in Turkey. The estimated impact and dynamic multipliers indicate that impact of remittances on consumption, imports and income are all positive and reduce gradually while that on investment wears out in the second year. The impact multiplier for income implies a substantial increase in income due to remittances through the multiplier process. The remittances-induced output growth rate is highest during the early 1970s and the early 1980s, but negligible during the other years.

While remittances from the GCC countries to Asia slowed down during the crisis, there is no evidence of large decreases. On the other hand, remittances to several MENA countries decreased during 2009, but the evidence for 2010 suggests a reversal of this pattern. Most of the recent labour policies adopted in the region have been directed towards improving the conditions of foreign workers and there is still a considerable demand for foreign labour in the region. As such, the future may bring extra competition between Asian workers and workers from other MENA countries for jobs in the GCC countries.

In this study we examine the macro-determinants of Turkish migration to Germany over the period 1969–2004 by means of cointegration analysis. We find that trade and factor flows indeed influence migration and play a role in managing Turkish migration in the short as well as in the long run. However, the income differential between Turkey and Germany is the most important factor in determining migration flows and the effects of trade and factor flows on migration in the short as well as in the long run are mixed. Therefore, we argue that migration could be better managed when the dynamic gains from trade and factor flows are considered.

This paper analyses the nexus of the global financial crisis and the remittance markets of Mexico and India, along with introducing new and emerging payment technologies that will help facilitate the growth of remittances worldwide. Overall resiliency is found in most markets but some are impacted differently by economic hardship. With that we also explore the area of emerging payment methods and how they can help nations weather this economic strife. Mobile payments are highlighted as one of the priority areas for the future of transferring monetary funds, and we assess their ability to further facilitate global remittances.

Migrant remittances are an important source of external finance for developing countries. The current financial crisis is believed to have influenced migrant remittance flows as well as volume and patterns of use of remittances. In this special issue, a collection of cases from around the world is presented to understand the immediately felt effects of the crisis. Potential influences due to the crisis impact on migration patterns are yet to be seen and studied.