Remittances and Real Effective Exchange Rate

Abstract

Remittances in India have been growing rapidly since 1991. Most of the studies find that remittance has had a significant impact on real effective exchange rate (REER). It is imperative to evaluate the impact of a transfer such as remittance and aid on country’s competitiveness. This article is an attempt to investigate the impact of workers’ remittances and some selected macro-variables on REER of India using annual data from 1980–2015. The study conducted autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) bound test co-integration approach to explore this long-run relationship. The ARDL bound test approach confirms significant long-run relationships among the selected variables at 1 per cent level of significance. In addition to this, the ARDL short-run error correction model implies that while REER may temporarily deviate from its long-run equilibrium, the deviations adjust towards the equilibrium level in the long run. JEL: F31, F35, F41