What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors

Remittances are a substantial source of external financing for developing countries that influence many aspects of their development. Though research has shown that remittances are both expensive and price sensitive, little is known about what explains their price. Newly gathered data across 119 cou...

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Main Authors:	Beck, Thorsten, Martínez Pería, María Soledad
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	en_US
Published:	World Bank 2013
Subjects:	developing countries foreign direct investment government policies Immigrants infant infant mortality International Conference on Migration level of education low-income countries migrant migrants migration flows mortality number of migrants remittance Remittances rural population service provider service providers socioeconomic factors
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13467

id	okr-10986-13467
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-134672021-04-23T14:03:08Z What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors Beck, Thorsten Martínez Pería, María Soledad developing countries foreign direct investment government policies Immigrants infant infant mortality International Conference on Migration level of education low-income countries migrant migrants migration flows mortality number of migrants remittance Remittances rural population service provider service providers socioeconomic factors Remittances are a substantial source of external financing for developing countries that influence many aspects of their development. Though research has shown that remittances are both expensive and price sensitive, little is known about what explains their price. Newly gathered data across 119 country pairs or corridors are used to explore the factors associated with the price of remittances. Corridors with larger numbers of migrants and more competition among providers are found to exhibit lower prices for remittances, when average prices across all types of remittance service providers are considered. Corridors with lower barriers to access banking services and broader regulation of remittance service providers also have lower prices. Remittance prices are higher in richer corridors and in corridors with greater bank participation in the remittance market. Few significant differences emerge when results are compared across banks and, separately, across money transfer operators. However, estimations for Western Union, a leading player in the remittances business, suggest that its prices are less sensitive to competition. 2013-05-20T20:50:10Z 2013-05-20T20:50:10Z 2011-01-30 Journal Article World Bank Economic Review 1564-698X doi:10.1093/wber/lhr017 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13467 en_US World Bank Economic Review;25(1) CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	en_US
topic	developing countries foreign direct investment government policies Immigrants infant infant mortality International Conference on Migration level of education low-income countries migrant migrants migration flows mortality number of migrants remittance Remittances rural population service provider service providers socioeconomic factors
spellingShingle	developing countries foreign direct investment government policies Immigrants infant infant mortality International Conference on Migration level of education low-income countries migrant migrants migration flows mortality number of migrants remittance Remittances rural population service provider service providers socioeconomic factors Beck, Thorsten Martínez Pería, María Soledad What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors
relation	World Bank Economic Review;25(1)
description	Remittances are a substantial source of external financing for developing countries that influence many aspects of their development. Though research has shown that remittances are both expensive and price sensitive, little is known about what explains their price. Newly gathered data across 119 country pairs or corridors are used to explore the factors associated with the price of remittances. Corridors with larger numbers of migrants and more competition among providers are found to exhibit lower prices for remittances, when average prices across all types of remittance service providers are considered. Corridors with lower barriers to access banking services and broader regulation of remittance service providers also have lower prices. Remittance prices are higher in richer corridors and in corridors with greater bank participation in the remittance market. Few significant differences emerge when results are compared across banks and, separately, across money transfer operators. However, estimations for Western Union, a leading player in the remittances business, suggest that its prices are less sensitive to competition.
format	Journal Article
author	Beck, Thorsten Martínez Pería, María Soledad
author_facet	Beck, Thorsten Martínez Pería, María Soledad
author_sort	Beck, Thorsten
title	What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors
title_short	What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors
title_full	What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors
title_fullStr	What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors
title_full_unstemmed	What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors
title_sort	what explains the price of remittances? an examination across 119 country corridors
publisher	World Bank
publishDate	2013
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/13467
_version_	1764423568714629120

What Explains the Price of Remittances? An Examination Across 119 Country Corridors

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