Paul Bischoff/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by)
Migrants and diasporans, some doing numerous jobs, often send a substantial part of their hard-earned cash to their relatives and friends in their country of origin. Known as remittances, these transfers have not only grown in volume over the decades but, unlike foreign direct investment, remain a steady financial flow in both tough and stable times.
The World Bank estimates that global remittances sent through formal channels in 2015 were near US$600 billion, with developing economies estimated to have received more than $440 billion of this amount. Many economists furthermore assume that the amount of money sent through informal channels – cash taken back in the pockets of friends for example – at the very least equals this formal flow.
