Remittance and economic growth; evidence from West Africa

The study was carried out in order to access the impact of migrant workers remittance inflows on economic growth in the ECOWAS sub-region. Annual panel data for 10 ECOWAS countries spanning from 2000 to 2013 were used for the study and Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) Arellano-Bond (Xtabond test) was employed in order to address the problem of endogeneity among the explanatory variables and ensure robust estimates. In concurrence with existing literature, our study suggests that remittances have positive effect on the economic growth of ECOWAS member countries. Specifically, we found that a 1 percent increase in migrant remittance leads to approximately 17 percent increase in growth.