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THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCE INFLOWS ON INFLATION: EVIDENCE IN ASIAN AND
THE PACIFIC DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Le Thanh TUNG
Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
lethanhtung@tdt.edu.vn
Pham Thi Minh LY
Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
phamthiminhly@tdt.edu.vn
Pham Thi Quynh NHU
Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
phamthiquynhnhu@tdt.edu.vn
Pham Tien THANH
Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
phamtienthanh@tdt.edu.vn
Le Tuan ANH
Faculty of Business Administration, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Vietnam
tuananhgtvt3@gmail.com
Tran Thi Phi PHUNG
Faculty of Business Administration, Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam
tranthiphiphung@tdt.edu.vn
Abstract
Remittance is one of the most important external sources flowing into developing countries. Many studies
have examined the impact of remittances on macroeconomic issues. However, there is a gap of empirical research
on the impact of remittances on inflation in Asian and the Pacific developing countries. This study applied such
econometrics methods as Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), Two-Stage Least Squares (2-SLS), Panel
Generalized Method of Moments (PGMM) and panel Granger causality to investigate this impact. Annual data for
the period 1985 – 2013 of 32 developing countries in Asian and the Pacific is used in this study. The results found
that remittance inflows significantly increase inflation during the research period and there exists a one-way
Granger causality from remittances to inflation.
Keywords: Asian and the Pacific developing countries, Inflation, Remittance inflows, Granger causality
JEL Classification: C33, E31, F22
1. Introduction
Since the 1980s, remittances have been rapidly increasing in quantity in the developing world. Remittances
are actually considered as an important capital source for fostering economic growth and reducing poverty in the
developing countries. There have been many empirical researches on the effect of remittances on the
macroeconomic issues in the recipient countries. In particular, some studies showed that remittances have positive
contribution to economic development such as economic growth promotion (Giuliano and Ruiz-Arranz, 2009; Rao
& Hassan, 2011; Nyamongo et al., 2012), financial sector expansion (Chowdhury, 2011; Aggarwal et al., 2011;
Cooray, 2012; Beine et al., 2012), economy’s competitiveness enhancement (Bayangos & Jansen, 2011), poverty
alleviation (Acosta et al., 2008; Gupta et al., 2009; Imai et al., 2014), and improvement of household expenditures
(Combes & Ebeke, 2011).
However, there are few studies on negative impact of remittances on the economy of recipient countries.
For instance, some studies found the effect of remittances on social inequality (Acosta et al., 2008) or corruption
(Berdiev et al., 2013). There seems to exist a research gap on the relationship between remittance inflows and
inflation for the case of the recipient countries in Asian and the Pacific or other continents. Consequently, the
question of whether the relationship between remittance inflows and inflation is positive or negative or even
insignificant remains unfastened.
In the recent years, Asian and the Pacific has emerged as a region with the most rapid growth of
remittances in the world. According to data from World Bank, Asian and the Pacific’s remittance inflows accounted
for about 47% of the total amount of remittances worldwide. Within two decades, the remittances in Asian and the
Pacific have increased 14 times, from $14.2 billion in 1990 up to $198.2 billion in 2010, and currently have a strong
upward trend. In 2012, there are 20 Asian and the Pacific countries with the ratio of remittances to GDP greater
2
than 1%. It is noteworthy that the amount of remittances is higher Official Development Aid (ODA) and becomes
the second capital inflow after foreign direct investment (FDI) with respect to the flows of foreign capital into Asian
and the Pacific (Fig.1). However, in Asian and the Pacific region, remittances are mainly transferred into the
developing countries. Specifically, the value of remittances into these countries accounted for 90% (in 2000) and
97% (in 2012) of the total amount of remittances into Asian and the Pacific countries.
Source: World Bank (World Development Indicators)
Figure 1 - Remittances and other resource inflows in Asian and the Pacific.
Therefore, how will inflation be affected by the remittances flow for the case of developing countries in
Asian and the Pacific region? However, no matter how the impact of remittances is, this impact needs to be
investigated as a basis for policies adjustments to stabilize inflation and maintain sustainable economic growth.
Consequently, this study was conducted to with the objective of examining the relationship between
remittances and inflation in recipient countries with the using data from 32 developing countries in Asian and the
Pacific. The research results may supplement in theoretical framework about the impact of remittances on the
whole economy in general and the relationship between this foreign currency flow and inflation in developing
countries in particular.
Next section presents the literature review by summarizing the empirical researches. Section III introduces
the econometric model and describes research data. Section IV presents the regression estimations. Section V
discusses the results of panel Granger causality. Finally, Section VI concludes remarkable findings.
2. Literature review and empirical researches
In fact, the remittance is one of the major foreign currency inflows that not only has the positive impacts on
the economy but also causes macroeconomic instability, including the risk of inflation. However, in the world as
well as in Asian and the Pacific region, there are few researches on the relationship between remittances and
inflation, and the research results are inconsistent.
Narayan et al. (2011) examined the determinants of inflation using a sample of 54 developing countries in
the world. Their result showed that remittances lead to an increase in inflation and the effect becomes more
obvious in long term. However, this research is conducted using statistical data for period of ten years from 1995 -
2004 and does not pay attention to particular feathers of remittances in the Asian and the Pacific developing
countries. In addition, this study has not deeply analyzed the causal effect between remittances and inflation during
the research period.
Continuously, Ball et al. (2012) applied a theoretical model and panel vector auto regression (PVAR)
technique using a panel data for the case of 21 emerging countries in the world in the 1980-2010 period. Their
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
1990 1995 2000 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
USD Billion
FDI Remittance flows ODA
3
research result found that remittances have increasing effect on inflation with a fixed exchange rate regime but
decreasing impact on inflation under a flexible exchange rate regime. Termos et al. (2013) employed the panel
regression methods (OLS and Anderson–Hsiao estimations) to prove the effect of remittance outflows on inflation
in 6 countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region over the period of 1972-2010. The result pointed out
that the growth of remittance outflows decrease inflation rate in GCC countries.
In addition, Khan and Islam (2013) used VAR techniques to investigate the case of Bangladesh from 1970
to 2010. Research result proved that every 1% increase in the remittance inflows simultaneously increases the
inflation rate at 2.48% in long term. However, their research found no short-term relationship between remittances
and inflation in Bangladesh in this period. Also for Bangladesh’s economy, Roy and Rahman (2014) applied VECM
model to study the relationship between remittances and inflation in general as well as remittances and food
inflation in particular. The results showed that the remittances increase both general inflation and food inflation.
Furthermore, remittances was found to increase food inflation by 2.5 times compared with general inflation. More
recently, Iqbal et al. (2013) investigated the nexus between remittances and inflation in Pakistan over the period
1980-2012. The finding evidenced that remittances have significantly positive impact on inflation. So this result
recommends that the Pakistan’s government should formulate policies to channel the remittances for
productive investments (i.e. though investment in infrastructure) rather than for consumption by diverse means.
3. Methodology and data description
3.1. The econometric model
Based on the previous researches, we apply an economics model on inflation function to investigate the
impact of remittance inflows on inflation for the case of Asian and the Pacific developing countries. The model is
written as follows:
ti,ti,3ti,21ti,1iti, εXαREMαINFαδINF
(3.1)
i = 1,2,3…, N; t = 1,2,3…, T
Where, INFi,t denotes inflation which is defined by GDP deflator; INFi,t-1 is the lag of inflation and REM is
remittance inflows over GDP. Moreover, X denotes the matrix of variables such as economic growth rate (GDPG);
government expenditure over GDP (GE); investment (INV) which is calculated by gross capital formation over
GDP; the level of trade openness of the economy (OPENNESS); current account over GDP (CA). Finally, i,t is
error term.
For the regression equation (1), three estimation methods with panel data including Ordinary Least Squares
(OLS), Two-Stage Least Squares (2-SLS) and Panel Generalized Method of Moments (PGMM) are employed to
examine the relationship between remittance inflows and inflation in recipient countries. 2-SLS and PGMM
methods are applied with the aim of controlling for endogeneity in the research model and the results from OLS
method is employed for comparison.
3.2. Data description
The research used annual data from 1985 to 2013 in 32 Asian and the Pacific developing countries. The
data is extracted from the World Development Indicators database of World Bank.
Table 1 - Descriptive statistics of the variables.
Statistics
Mean
Median
Maximum
Minimum
Std.dev
INF
7.88
6.75
280.1
-18.9
6.42
REM
6.65
2.94
49.2
0.03
9.51
GDPG
6.45
6.34
34.5
-14.1
5.15
GE
0.12
0.11
0.39
0.03
0.04
INV
28.3
26.5
69.2
13.03
10.0
CA
-0.23
-0.76
44.1
-32.5
11.8
OPENNESS
1.01
0.83
4.50
0.31
0.74
Source: World Bank (World Development Indicators)
4. Empirical Results
In fact, remittance inflows are considered as foreign currencies; therefore, they may replace the domestic
currency in recipient countries in function of intermediate exchange or reserve. Therefore, higher amount of
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remittances may increase the total intermediate exchange in the recipient countries. The growth of remittance
inflows may increase both domestic consumption and aggregate demand of the economy. The effect of
remittances on aggregate demand will continue to expand with multiplier effect. Moreover, an increase in
aggregate demand will raise the inflation rate, which is defined as the demand-pull inflation.
In addition, remittance inflows increase supply of foreign currency, and then exert pressure on decrease of
exchange rate. The decline in exchange rate will impact on trade balance negatively. Therefore, the central bank
needs to increase domestic money supply to buy foreign currency for raising the exchange rate. According to the
Quantity theory of money, the growth of domestic money supply leads to higher inflation. Therefore, it is expected
from this study that remittance inflows raise inflation in the developing countries in Asian and the Pacific region.
Table 2 - Estimation results
Statistics
OLS
2-SLS
PGMM
INF(-1)
0.2337***
(3.495)
0.2302***
(3.067)
0.8459***
(14.326)
GDPG
0.2943***
(3.430)
0.7843***
(3.456)
0.1916***
(2.890)
REM
0.1472***
(3.119)
0.1148*
(2.109)
0.3160***
(3.404)
GE
-10.303
(-1.100)
-10.188
(-0.972)
-31.928
(-1.245)
INV
-0.0283
(-0.598)
0.1157*
(1.758)
0.2061**
(2.140)
OPENNESS
-0.3182
(-0.554)
-0.1187
(-0.293)
10.695***
(3.885)
CA
-0.081*
(-1.805)
-0.1661***
(-2.727)
0.0877
(1.178)
Observations
R2
206
0.219
197
0.072
178
-
Notes: t-statistics are in parentheses;
* significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%.
The regression results were conducted using three estimation methods, including OLS, 2-SLS and PGMM.
All regression coefficients representing the relationship among the variables are shown in Table 2. The main
finding is the impact of remittances on inflation. As expected, the analysis results from three estimation methods
show the positive relationship between remittance inflows and inflation and these impacts are statistically
significant (1% and 10% level). These results confirmed that remittance inflows lead to upward pressure on
inflation in the Asian and the Pacific developing countries.
According to the Impossible Trinity theory, the countries need to sacrifice an independent monetary policy
for free capital flows (including remittance inflows) and fixed exchange rate regime. Thereby, the growth of
remittance inflows leads to more complexity for monetary policy in stabilizing both exchange rate and inflation. This
finding provides a significant empirical evidence for these countries to control inflation in the context of upward
trend in remittance inflows.
The results also find that current inflation has a significantly positive relationship with inflation in the past,
which reflects inertial inflation. Moreover, investment is also proved to have a positive impact on inflation because
the growth of investment would increase the aggregate demand and then raise the demand-pull inflation.
The analysis results also find a significantly negative relationship between current account and inflation
because 19 countries in the research sample (about 60%) run deficit on the current account in the research period.
Moreover, current account deficit will reduce total intermediate exchange and decrease the pressure on inflation.
From the analysis results, it is also confirmed that the economic growth and openness have significantly positive
impact on inflation for the case of these countries. However, the results find no impact of government expenditure
on inflation in the research period.
5. Panel Granger causality test results
In this section, panel Granger causality test is applied to discover the existence of causal relationships
between some macroeconomics indicators and inflation in Asian and the Pacific developing countries. The
standard Granger causality test constructed by Granger (1969) is not suitable for panel data. Therefore, our paper
5
employs the panel Granger causality test method developed by Hurlin and Venet (2001) and Hansen and Rand
(2006). This method assumed that the autoregressive coefficients and the slope coefficients are constant in a
panel VAR model. Some studies have applied the technique developed by Hurlin and Venet (2001) to test for
Granger causality with panel data (Erdil and Yetkiner, 2009; Töngür and Elveren, 2014). On the basis of the
researches by Hurlin and Venet (2001) and the previous empirical studies, we consider a panel VAR model to
examine the causal effect of explanatory variables xi,t on dependent variable yi,t via estimating the following
equation:
q
1k
q
1k ti,kti,
k
ikti,
k
ti, vxγyηy
(5.1)
Where, t denotes periods, N are cross section units and i ϵ [1, N]. xi,t and yi,t are covariance stationary
variables. k and
k
i
γ
are assumed to be constant over time.
Four methods of panel unit root test are employed in this paper, including LLC (Levin et al., 2002), IPS (Im
et al., 2003), Breitung (Breitung, 2000) and Choi (Choi, 2001). The results of panel unit root tests indicate that
some variables in the equation (1) are non-stationary at level. However, the testing results show that all variables
are stationary at first difference at significant level of 1% (Table 3). Thenceforth, the panel VAR model with first-
difference variables is applied to test Granger causality in next step.
Table 3 - Results of panel unit root tests at level and first difference
Level
INF
GDPG
REM
GE
INV
OPENNESS
CA
LLC
-8.7387***
-7.3938***
1.1712
-1.6461*
-0.6275
0.7958
-4.5214***
IPS
-5.6499***
-10.072***
0.0088
-4.2250***
-1.3226*
-0.2374
-0.1377
Breitung
-5.8985***
-7.8966***
2.5355
-1.1846
-0.7239
-0.3184
-0.5100
Choi
-9.7081***
-8.8630***
0.0807
-4.0327***
-1.4162*
-0.2261
-1.3054*
First difference
∆INF
∆GDPG
∆REM
∆GE
∆INV
∆OPENNESS
∆CA
LLC
-136.049***
-15.7057***
-6.8652***
-10.7189***
-15.1049***
-10.9788***
-5.5452***
IPS
-12.0171***
-15.6564***
-3.3355***
-14.9599***
-14.6015***
-15.2580***
-5.5585***
Breitung
-12.1627***
-13.2315***
-10.0065***
-12.4848***
-12.4667***
-10.1188***
-4.8764***
Choi
-20.9270***
-30.7138***
-7.0693***
-18.0762***
-13.1845***
-14.0531***
-7.1106***
Notes: * significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%.
On the basis of the technique developed by Hurlin and Venet (2001), we use two time stationary VAR
models to examine the Granger causality between inflation and the explanatory variables in the equation (1).
These VAR equations can be presented as follows:
q
1k
q
1k ti,kti,
k
ikti,
k
ti, vxγyηy
(5.2)
q
1k
q
1k ti,kti,
k
ikti,
k
ti, vyγxηx
(5.3)
The selection of the optimal lag length for panel VAR models relies on some criteria including Akaike
Information Criterion (AIC), Schwarz Criterion (SC), Hannan-Quinn Information Criterion (HQ), Final Prediction
Error (FPE) and Likelihood Ratio (LR). The results from panel Granger causality tests between inflation and all
explanatory variables are presented in Table 4.
The results from Table 4 indicate the existence of one-way Granger causality from remittance to inflation in
Asian and the Pacific developing countries. It shows that remittance inflows increase inflation and this effect is
statistically significant at 5% level.
Similarly, the results also find the existence of one-way causality from investment, trade openness and
current account to inflation at 1% level of significance. Finally, it is found that there exists two-ways Granger
causality between economic growth rate and inflation for the case of the Asian and the Pacific developing countries
at significant level of 1%.
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Table 4 - Results of panel Granger causality tests
Rem and Inflation
Lag = 6
REM→ INF
INF → REM
16.17730**
9.803004
Economic growth rate and Inflation
Lag = 3
GDPG → INF
INF → GDPG
23.12958***
27.20191***
Government expenditure and Inflation
Lag = 1
GE → INF
INF → GE
1.71526
0.857978
Investment and Inflation
Lag = 7
INV → INF
INF → INV
18.96116***
9.314643
Trade openness and Inflation
Lag = 2
OPENNESS → INF
INF → OPENNESS
49.74494***
1.055573
Current account and Inflation
Lag = 2
CA→ INF
INF → CA
8.493614**
0.576376
Notes: * significant at 10%; ** significant at 5%; *** significant at 1%.
6. Conclusion
Unlike the previous studies on the remittances-inflation nexus, a sample of 32 Asian and the Pacific
developing countries over the period 1985-2013 was applied in this study to examine this relationship. The results
found that higher remittance inflows raise inflation rate in these countries. In particular, results from three
estimation methods applied in this research showed that there is a positive relationship between remittances and
inflation. Furthermore, the Panel Granger causality test confirmed the existence of one-way causality from
remittances to inflation in the research period. The research results complement and contribute to literature on the
impact of remittances on the economy. The research findings also provide useful information about the impact
direction of remittances on inflation, and thenceforth the policymakers in these countries can enhance the
effectiveness of planning and operating monetary policy to stabilize inflation due to the upward trend in remittance
inflows in Asian and the Pacific region.
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Appendix
8
Appendix 1 - List of countries used in research sample
Country
Armenia
Lao
Azerbaijan
Macao
Bangladesh
Malaysia
Bhutan
Maldives
Cambodia
Mongolia
China
Nepal
Fiji
Pakistan
Georgia
Papua New Guinea
Hong Kong
Philippines
India
Samoa
Indonesia
Solomon Islands
Iran
Sri Lanka
Kazakhstan
Tajikistan
Kiribati
Thailand
Korea, Rep.
Turkey
Kyrgyz Republic
Vietnam
