|
Javier Santiso, Pablo Fajnzylber, Jean-Christophe Dumont and Humberto López
|
|
In 2005 migrant workers from Latin America sent a total of $48.3 billion back to their home countries. Despite the overwhelming figures, the impact of remittances on the region’s development should not be overestimated: they certainly tend to stimulate higher level of savings, growth and investment rates, but they can also have frequently overlooked side effects, such as brain drain, overvaluation of the real exchange rate and loss of external competitiveness. The Latin American Economic Outlook organized the presentation at La Maison de l’Amérique Latine of Close to Home: The Development Impact of Remittances in Latin America, a report by World Bank senior economists Humberto López and Pablo Fajnzylber that assess the real impact of remittances in Latin America.
|
