Yashodhan Ghorpade will be discussing his latest research at the second “Conversations about Conflict and Violence” being held this term. He will examine the causal effects of long-term exposure to conflict, measured at the micro-level, on households’ receipt of remittances.
Using IV estimation to overcome the endogeneity of conflict exposure and remittance receipts, and controlling for a range of confounding factors, he finds that, contrary to the literature from country-level case studies, long-term exposure to conflict reduces households’ receipts of remittances.
Informal modes of money transfer (as against formal banking), and the likely presence of Taliban-affiliate armed groups, and more strongly, the overlap of these two factors, likely explain why conflict exposure leads to lower remittance receipts in Pakistan. This suggests that remittances are lower in conflict-affected areas in response to the higher risk and insecurity; which is confirmed by the fact that the negative effects of conflict on remittances are also stronger for groups that are more likely to use such receipts to invest, rather than for consumption.
About the speaker:
Yashodhan Ghorpade is a development economist with an interest in household behaviour under conflict and other shocks. His thesis focuses on the impact of conflict on the ability of households to cope with other shocks; in the case of the floods in Pakistan in 2010.
He has previously worked with IFPRI, the World Bank Social Protection Unit, ILO-IPEC and Oxford Policy Management. At IDS his work has focused on the economic analysis of conflict. He has worked on the Agency and Development MICROCON project in Maharashtra, India, looking at how riots have affected household welfare and behaviour.
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