Dr. Beck attributes the growth in part to "the snowball effect from the 1980s, as more immigrants to America sent home significant remittances and stories of opportunity".
A diversified livelihood strategy drawing on the small island environment and its coastal and marine resources, income generating activities in a distant satellite village, and significant remittances from employment in other parts of Indonesia underpinned people's capacities to face hazards.
This is significant as remittance flows have historically been resistant to significant decline even in times of global economic downturn.
As seen in Table 5, the estimates are striking; while both the direct and interaction effects of remittances are statistically significant for internal remittances (presented in columns 1 and 2), external remittances are found to have no statistically significant impact on education spending.
In recent years, many such countries have witnessed significant increases in remittance flows, to the point that their scale has come to dwarf that of other types of resource inflows, whether development assistance, foreign direct investment, or other types of capital flows.
The results show that only a few other variables have a statistically significant impact on remittance levels.
The study shows that there is a significant contribution of remittances in building construction practices.
And he said at least a part of the significant jump in remittances could be attributed to better accounting.
Indeed, in addition to showing a significant jump in remittances, the report opened a window onto the shifts in illegal immigration to the United States since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Developing nations from Africa to Latin America, their budgets already weakened by food and oil price rises over the past two years, are now suffering from falling commodity prices, waning foreign direct investment and the likelihood of a significant drop in remittances from migrant laborers in 2009.
Meanwhile, Edwards and Ureta (2003) find a significant impact of remittances on school retention in El Salvador.
