Remittances, lagged dependent variables and migration stocks as determinants of migration from developing countries

In regressions for net immigration flows of developing countries we show that (i) savings finance emigration and worker remittances serve to make staying rather than migrating possible until a certain value, beyond which the opposite holds; (ii) lagged dependent migration flows have a negative sign even in the presence of migration stock variables; (iii) migration stocks have S-shaped effects: at sufficiently low values higher migration stocks support emigration; beyond a threshold value they support net immigration before they possibly support emigration again after a second threshold value.

JEL-code: F22, O15. Keywords: migration, remittances.

UNU-MERIT Working Papers ISSN 1871-9872