Development Policy Centre Podcast

It is time to fundamentally reframe the research agenda on migration, remittances, payments and development. Many policymakers in the developing world, and researchers, tend to view migrant remittances as windfall income, rather than as returns on investment, which is how families with migrants tend to see remittances. Migration is thus, among other things, a strategy for financial management in poor households: location is an asset, migration an investment.Some of the most basic questions about remittances and their effects remain inadequately answered, in part because of a blinded research agenda. Asking better questions is a step towards better policies, programs and regulations and, above all, to enable people on low incomes to improve their lives.In this webinar, based on the article “Migration and household finances: How a different framing can improve thinking about migration”, Timothy Ogden discusses some of the new and alternative research questions that emerge from the shift of perspective on remitt