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...

The finding that industrial sectors differ in their dependence on external finance for sector-specific technological reasons and, thus, rely to a different degree on financial development has become a major concept in studies conducted on both growth and trade. Although natural resources might...