Abstract

Remittances are the funds transferred from migrants to their homes and home countries. They are the private savings of workers and families that are spent on food and clothing among other things, and at a macro-level, they are often critical to a nation’s overall financial health. While remittances can be much more, much of our discussion of the macro-level impacts of remittances are framed around discussion of develop and dependency and note how states use (or misuse) remittances as well as the critical role remittances play as measured against international aid. These discussions will often and inevitably hinge on the positive outcomes that lead to development (whether at the level of the household, community and/or state) or the negative impacts of remittance activity that drives increasing dependency. In this issue of Remittances Review, our authors push beyond the development/dependency debate and explore a series of often unasked questions that capture the dynamic outcomes (and surprises) that are central to remittances practices and critical to the growth and maturity of theory and analysis.