Remittances, investment, and rural asset accumulation in Pakistan
Remittances, investment, and rural asset accumulation in Pakistan
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DOI：
10.1086/452390
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发表时间：
1998-10-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Adams, RH
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Adams, RH
在大多数第三世界国家，国内和国外移徙可对农村资产积累产生深远影响。在许多非洲、亚洲和拉丁美洲国家，大部分劳动力仍然生活在农村。在这些国家，预期的农村和城市或外国收入之间的巨大差异，加上移徙的减少风险功能，导致工人移徙到城市中心或国外。汇款--被定义为农民工寄回家的钱或货物--对这些农村地区的资产积累有很大的影响。例如，外国汇款流入处于收入分配高端的农村家庭，可能会增加富人的土地积累。总的来说，汇款对第三世界农村经济体资产积累的影响取决于对三个问题的回答：（a）谁移徙？(b)流动人口汇出多少净收入？（c）这些汇款对家庭消费和投资的边际影响是什么？由于数据的限制，在这篇文章中，我建议只研究第一和第三个问题;其他研究人员已经解决了第二个问题。[2]令人惊讶的是，过去很少有人关注汇款对第三世界农村家庭消费和投资的边际影响问题。这种忽视是由于三个相当大的方法问题。第一是可替代性;由于汇款与任何其他形式的现金收入一样，很难将这一收入来源与家庭支出行为的任何特定变化联系起来。第二个问题涉及汇款对当地经济的多轮影响。例如，汇款流入农村地区可能导致住房支出激增，这反过来又可能为穷人和无技能者创造新的收入和就业机会。然而，不幸的是，芝加哥大学1998年的研究很少。All rights reserved.
Internal and external migration can have a profound impact on rural asset accumulation in most Third World countries. In many African, Asian, and Latin American countries the bulk of the labor force still lives in the countryside. In these countries the large difference between expected rural and urban or foreign incomes, coupled with the risk-reducing functions of migration, causes workers to migrate, either to urban centers or abroad. 1 The remittances—defined as the money or goods sent home by migrant workers—can have a large effect on the accumulation of assets in these rural areas. For example, an inflow of external remittances to rural households at the upper end of the income distribution could increase land accumulation by the rich. In general terms the effect of remittances on asset accumulation in a rural Third World economy depends on answers to three questions:(a) Who migrates?(b) How much net income do migrants remit? and (c) What are the marginal effects of these remittances on household consumption and investment? Because of data limitations, in this article I propose to examine only the first and the third questions; other researchers have addressed the second issue. 2 In the past surprisingly little attention has been focused on the question of the marginal effects of remittances on household consumption and investment in the rural Third World. This inattention has been due to three considerable methodological problems. The first is fungibility; because remittances are like any other form of cash income, it is difficult to associate this income source with any particular changes in household expenditure behavior. The second problem relates to the multiple-round effects of remittances on the local economy. For example, an inflow of remittances into a rural area may lead to a surge in expenditures in housing, which may, in turn, create new income and employment opportunities for the poor and unskilled. Unfortunately, however, few studies have© 1998 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.