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

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Published: Aug 30, 2019
Keywords:
Cambodia; remittances; education; investment; pooled cross-section data

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

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
Issue
Vol. 28 No. 1 (2020): January - March
Section
Research Articles
Author Biography

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

Corresponding author

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