Banking services, transaction costs and international remittance flows

Using a unique data set on the financial sector, this article assesses the impact that financial sector development has on international remittance flows for a sample of 64 countries. The results show that greater financial sector development - as measured by bank branches per 1000 km² - results in greater remittance flows to a country. However, this study also documents that transaction costs have no impact on remittance flows. This latter finding has important policy implications as reductions in transaction costs are often cited as an important approach to increase remittance flows.