Essays on international transfers: a macroeconomic approach.

Summary This thesis contributes four essays to the literature on international migrant remittances, using a macroeconomic approach. The first essay focuses on the macroeconomic determinants of migrant remittances. This first essay empirically examines the response of remittances to economic conditions in the migrants' host country and in the migrants' home country, using a V AR panel approach. This empirical study uses annual data from 14 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The other three essays focus on the macroeconomic effects of migrant remittances on the economies of developing countries. The second essay quantitatively assesses the contribution of remittance shocks to macroeconomic fluctuations using a Real Business Cycle (RBC) model. The model used is a general stochastic dynamic equilibrium model with three goods (non-traded goods, exportable goods and importable goods) calibrated to the Senegalese economy. The third essay examines the effect of migrant remittances on the real exchange rate in a two-sector (traded and non-traded goods) small open economy monetary model, and conducts a corresponding empirical study on annual data for the CFA Franc zone countries. The fourth essay empirically studies the effect of migrant remittances on growth volatility with a particular focus on the interaction between migrant remittances and financial development. This empirical study is conducted using annual data on 75 developing countries.