Motivation behind remittance from migrants: Evidence from Albania

In Albania, remittance has been an important factor for the countryfs economic growth since the collapse of the countryfs communist regime in the early 1990s. In this paper, I investigated why migrants send remittance to their parents household. In the analysis, I considered four remittance motivations: altruistic, exchange, insurance, and inheritance motivations. To control sample selection of migration, I apply the Heckman sample selection model. The results suggest that migrants in Albania are driven to remit owing to a combination of altruistic, exchange, and inheritance motivations. Further, migration destination influences remittance amount, which implies that not only the local labor market and exchange rate at the final destination but also migration motivation factors affect remittance amount.