Do Remittances Increase Household Investment in Education? Evidence from Cambodia During and After the Global Financial Crisis

Main Article Content

Vatana Chea
Patcharawalai Wongboonsin

Abstract

Contributing to the growing interest in understanding the mechanism through which remittances spur development, this paper, by looking at the timing of the receipt of remittances, the origin of remittances, and household-income level, presents new evidence on the controversial debate concerning the impact of remittances on education. We apply an ad-hoc two-stage modelling methodology to pooled cross-section data from the Cambodia Socio-Economic Surveys of 2009 and 2014. Several principal findings emerge: (1) Even for a specific country, the timing of receipt of income from different sources can lead to significantly different expenditure patterns; (2) Cambodian households do not view remittances as transitory income; (3) Only international remittances have a significant effect, yet a USD 1.00 increase in such leads to a decrease in educational investment by USD 0.25; (4) Despite this, the marginal effect is statistically significant only for households that receive more than USD 50 and for poor families.

Article Details

How to Cite
Chea, V., & Wongboonsin, P. (2019). Do Remittances Increase Household Investment in Education? Evidence from Cambodia During and After the Global Financial Crisis. Journal of Population and Social Studies [JPSS], 28(1), 1–21. Retrieved from https://so03.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/jpss/article/view/173230
Section
Research Articles
Author Biography

Patcharawalai Wongboonsin, College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand

Corresponding author

References

Abella, M., & Ducanes, G. (2009). The effect of the global economic crisis on Asian migrant workers and governments’ responses. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 18(1), 143–161.

• Acosta, P., Fajnzylber, P., & Lopez, H. (2007). The impact of remittances on poverty and human capital: Evidence from Latin American household surveys. In C. Özden & M. Schiff (Eds.), International Migration, Economic Development and Policy (pp. 59–98). Washington D.C.: the World Bank and Palgrave Macmillan.

• Adams, R.H. (2011). Evaluating the economic impact of international remittances on developing countries using household surveys: A literature review. The Journal of Development Studies, 47(6), 809–828.

• Adams, R.H., & Cuecuecha, A. (2010). Remittances, household expenditure and investment in Guatemala. World Development, 38(11), 1626–1641.

• Adams, R.H., Cuecuecha, A., & Page, J. (2008). Remittances, consumption and investment in Ghana (No. 4515). Washington D.C.

• Asian Development Bank (ADB). (2015). Cambodia: Addressing the skills gap. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank.

• Amuedo-Dorantes, C., & Pozo, S. (2006). Migration, remittances, and male and female employment patterns. The American Economic Review, 96(2), 222–226.

• Amuedo-Dorantes, C., & Pozo, S. (2011). New evidence on the role of remittances on healthcare expenditures by Mexican households. Review of Economics of the Household, 9(1), 69–98.

• Anderson, J. (2011). The gravity model. Annual Review of Economics, 3, 133–60.

• Antman, F.M. (2013). The impact of migration on family left behind. In A. F. Constant & K. F. Zimmermann (Eds.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

• Bansak, C., Chezum, B., & Giri, A. (2015). Remittances, school quality, and household education expenditures in Nepal. IZA Journal of Migration, 4(1), 16.

• Brown, R., & Jimenez-Soto, E. (2015). Chapter 20: Migration and remittances. In B. Chiswick & P. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of the Economics of International Migration (pp. 1077–1140). Amsterdam: North-Holland.

• Brown, R., & Leeves, G. (2011). Comparative effects of migrants’ remittances on composition of recipient household income in two small, island economies. Applied Economics, 43(27), 3965–3976.

• Brown, R., Leeves, G., & Prayaga, P. (2014). Sharing norm pressures and community remittances: Evidence from a natural disaster in the Pacific Islands. The Journal of Development Studies, 50(3), 383–398.

• Bylander, M. (2014). Borrowing across borders: Migration and microcredit in rural Cambodia. Development and Change, 45(2), 284–307.

• Bylander, M., & Hamilton, E.R. (2015). Loans and leaving: Migration and the expansion of microcredit in Cambodia. Population Research and Policy Review, 34(5), 687–708.

• Chami, R., Fullenkamp, C., & Jahjah, S. (2005). Are immigrant remittance flows a source of capital for development? IMF Staff Papers, 52(1), 55–81.

• Chandararot, K., Sina, S., & Dannet, L. (2009). Rapid assessment of the impact of the financial crisis in Cambodia. Bangkok, Thailand.

• Clement, M. (2011). Remittances and household expenditure patterns in Tajikistan: A propensity score matching analysis. Asian Development Review, 28(2), 58–87.

• Cragg, J. (1971). Some statistical models for limited dependent variables with application to the demand for durable goods. Econometrica, 39(5), 829–844.

• Deb, P., Norton, E., & Manning, W. (2017). Health econometrics using stata. Texas: Stata Press.

• Deshingkar, P. (2006). Internal migration, poverty and development in Asia: Including the excluded. IDS Bulletin, 37(3), 88–100.

• Duan, N. (1983). Smearing estimate: A nonparametric retransformation method. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 78(383), 605–610.

• Duan, N., Manning, W.G., Morris, C.N., & Newhouse, J.P. (1984). Choosing between the sample-selection model and the multi-part model. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 2(3), 283–289.

• Friedman, M. (1953). Essays in positive economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Giannetti, M., Federici, D., & Raitano, M. (2009). Migrant remittances and inequality in Central‐Eastern Europe. International Review of Applied Economics, 23(3), 289–307.

• Hanson, G., & Woodruff, C. (2003). Emigration and educational attainment in Mexico. Working Paper: University of California, San Diego.

• Jampaklay, A., & Kittisuksathit, S. (2009). Migrant workers’ remittances: Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar. Bangkok: ILO.

• McKenzie, D., & Rapoport, H. (2011). Can migration reduce educational attainment? Evidence from Mexico. Journal of Population Economics, 24(4), 1331–1358.

• McKenzie, D., & Sasin, M. (2007). Migration, remittances, poverty, and human capital: Conceptual and empirical challenges (No. 4272). Washington, DC: World Bank.

• Ministry of Planning. (2012). Cambodia Rural Urban Migration Project 2011. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Planning.

• Mullahy, J. (1998). Much ado about two: Reconsidering retransformation and the two-part model in health econometrics. Journal of Health Economics, 17(3), 247–281.

• National Institute of Statistics. (2009). General population census of Cambodia 2008: National report on final census results. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Planning.

• Nelder, J.A., & Wedderburn, R.W.M. (1972). Generalized linear models. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), 135(3), 370–384.

• Roth, V., & Tiberti, L. (2017). Economic effects of migration on the left-behind in Cambodia. The Journal of Development Studies, 53(11), 1787–1805.

• Stark, O. (1991). The migration of labor. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.

• Taylor, J.E., & Mora, J. (2006). Does migration reshape expenditures in rural households? Evidence from Mexico (No. 3842).

• Tunon, M., & Rim, K. (2013). Cross-border labour migration in Cambodia : Considerations for the national employment policy. Bangkok: ILO.

• United Nations. (2017). International migration report. New York: United Nations.

• Woodruff, C., & Zenteno, R. (2007). Migration networks and microenterprises in Mexico. Journal of Development Economics, 82(2), 509–528.

• Wooldridge, J. (2010). Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

• World Bank Databank. (2019). Retrieve July 9, 2019 from https://databank.worldbank.org/home.aspx

• Yang, D. (2008). International migration, remittances and household investment: Evidence from Philippine migrants’ exchange rate shocks. The Economic Journal, 118(528), 591–630.

• Yang, D. (2011). Migrant remittances. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3), 129–151.

• Zimmer, Z., & Van Natta, M. (2018). Migration and left-behind parents and children of migrants in Cambodia: A look at household composition and the economic situation. Asian Population Studies, 14(3), 271–289.