Remittance Inflows and Export Complexity : New Evidence from Developing and Emerging Countries

Recent research highlights the importance of both migrant remittances and export complexity for understanding how economic development differs across developing countries. We integrate theories from both research streams to propose that remittances enhance export complexity in developing and emerging countries by encouraging business investment and entrepreneurship. We, then, document broad sample statistical evidence related to that proposal in regression analyses of remittance effects on export complexity in a sample of developing countries observed from 2002–2014. Our empirical results indicate that remittances generally and remittances used for investment purposes are positively associated with export complexity across a range of model specifications and estimation strategies