The assumption that remittances are a substitute for credit has been an implicit or explicit theoretical foundation of many empirical studies on remittances. This paper directly tests this assumption by comparing the response to health-related shocks among national and transnational households...

In policy discussions, it has frequently been claimed that migrants' remittances could function as a "catalyst" for financial access among receiving households. This paper provides empirical evidence on this hypothesis from Mexico, a major receiver of remittances worldwide. Using the Mexican...

El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala count among today's most violent countries of the world. Qualitative research has claimed that large-scale deportations of Central American convicts have played an important role for the spread of gangs and rampant violence in the region. Using a novel...

While recent literature has pointed out that migrants ́remittances have a positive impact on savings with financial institutions, findings with respect to access to and the use of loans have been ambiguous. This paper investigates whether the reception of remittances facilitates taking up loans...

Existing literature on cross-national variation in violence has paid little attention to the transnational transmission of crime. One such channel are the forced returns of migrants with a criminal record in their countries of temporary residence. Responding to this research gap, we study the...

During a global shock two forces act upon international remittances in opposite directions: income losses among migrants may reduce their ability to send remittances and, at the same time, migrants' concern for their family's wellbeing may prompt them to send more remittances back home. Which of...