Remittances and Household Expenditure Behaviour: Evidence From Senegal

We use different econometric techniques, from propensity score matching to multinomial

treatment methods, to assess the impact of internal and external remittances on several

household budget shares in Senegal. When only considering the average impact of remittances

on the household expenditure behaviour, we find an overall productive use of remittances.

However, the impact of remittances disappears when the marginal spending behaviour is

considered, i.e., households do not show a different consumption pattern with respect to their

remittance status. The marginal spending behaviour therefore suggests that, in the decision on

how to allocate expenditure, remittances are treated just as any other source of income.