Who receives remittances? A case study of the distributional impact on Liberian refugees in Ghana
Naohiko Omata
Significant advances in transportation and communication have helped substantially expand the recent flow of transnational migration. As a result, there has been rapidly growing interest in the impact of remittances on development, and on poverty reduction in particular (see de Haas 2005). But are poor households the main recipients of remittances? Little research has been devoted to the distributional impact of remittances. This Development Viewpoint reports relevant results from extensive fieldwork in a Liberian refugee settlement in Ghana. Though the sample is small and distinctive, the research findings suggest that rich, rather than poor, households could be the main beneficiaries of remittances.