Journal of International Business and Economics

International Migrant Remittances And Financial Sector Development: Evidence From West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ)
Ugochukwu Sebastine Ugwuegbe, Chibueze Ekene Onyeke, Nnenna G. Nwonye, Chukwu Benjamin Ibe

Abstract
In this study, we examined the effect of international migrant remittances on financial sector development with a panel of 6 countries in West Africa Monetary Zone (WAMZ). The novelty provided by our study is that we examined the effect of migrant remittances not only on the depth of the financial sectors but also on the efficiency and stability of the financial sector development which many studies failed to cover. We employed one-step differenced-Generalized Method Moments on a panel data of 6 countries and 21 observations (1996-2016) from each country. Our findings showed that international migrant remittances positively contribute to financial sector development in WAMZ. The result of robustness test indicates that the effect of remittances on the depth of the financial sector depends on the type of proxy variable used. We, therefore, recommended that effort should be made by the government to promote inflow of migrant remittances into the WAMZ sub-region.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jibe.v6n2a6