Many empirical analyses have demonstrated that financial inclusion and remittance inflows both indicate the potential of finance to resolve issues of growth and poverty in developing countries. Based on a wide-ranging review of prior research and empirical analyses from a new perspective, this book aims to systematically clarify the relations between financial inclusion, remittance inflows, economic growth, and poverty reduction in developing countries, revealing a new role for development finance.

The main purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impacts of remittance inflows, financial inclusion, and economic development and whether inward remittances may help to construct an inclusive financial system. Using both endogeneity-robust generalized method of moments and a structural equation model, our results show that remittances and financial inclusions are engines of growth in countries of different income groups. This implies that the policies to attract extra inward remittances and improve financial inclusion status are of great importance and could pull middle-income countries out of middle-income traps. To this end, our empirical study helps to shed light on the development dilemma of remittance inflows and financial inclusion and to explain both direct and indirect mechanisms through which these effects may happen.

We propose a simple macroeconomic model with input-output sectoral linkages based on Acemoglu et al. (2016) to quantify how changes in aggregate demand due to additional income from household’s remittances propagates through the network of input-output linkages in Sub-Saharan African countries. We first propose two network centrality measures to assess the role of some sectors as key input providers in the economy. Then, we use these measures to quantify the effect of sectoral linkages on sectoral and total output following an increase in remittances inflows. Our empirical results suggest that the effects of remittances on recipient economies increase with the degree of linkages across sectors, which is especially prominent in the case of the financial intermediation sector. Our paper contributes to the emerging macroeconomic literature on the propagation of shocks across sectors and the implications for the whole economy.

International migration, the movement of people across international boundaries to improve economic opportunity, has enormous implications for growth and welfare in both origin and destination countries. An important benefit to developing countries is the receipt of remittances or transfers from income earned by overseas emigrants. Official data show that development countries' remittance receipts totaled 160 billion in 2004, more than twice the size of official aid. This year's edition of Global Economic Prospects focuses on remittances and migration. The bulk of the book covers remittances.

One side in the current debate about who benefits from growth has focused solely on average impacts on poverty and inequality, while the other side has focused on the diverse welfare impacts found beneath the averages. Both sides have a point.

This article investigates how financial development helps to reduce poverty directly through the McKinnon conduit effect and indirectly through economic growth. The results obtained with data for a sample of developing countries from 1966 through 2000 suggest that the poor benefit from the ability of the banking system to facilitate transactions and provide savings opportunities but to some extent fail to reap the benefit from greater availability of credit. Moreover, financial development is accompanied by financial instability, which is detrimental to the poor. Nevertheless, the benefits of financial development for the poor outweigh the cost.