http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/1359/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6591/ 2005-03-14T00:00:00Z What determines remittances – altruism or enlightened self-interest - and do remittances trigger additional migration? These two questions are examined empirically in Egypt, Turkey and Morocco for households with family members living abroad. Results show, first, that one cannot clearly pinpoint altruistic or motives of self-interest since each country tells a different story and within a country both motives can be defended as driving forces behind remittance behaviour. A general conclusion based on a multi-country study is that the family ties and the net earnings potential of emigrants have stronger effects on receipt of remittances than net earnings potential of households in the country of origin. Second, the receipt of remittances has a positive effect on emigration intentions of household members living in the country of origin. Therefore, receipt of remittances may contribute to new flows of migration, in particular in the case of Morocco. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/6704/ 2003-07-09T00:00:00Z This paper evaluates the strength of social and economic forces that affect the pressure to emigrate 'out of Africa' for four distinctly different African countries (Morocco, Egypt, Senegal and Ghana). In general, great expectations about attaining a higher living standard and expected low job search costs abroad are strong forces that drive emigration intentions out of Africa, especially in Ghana and Senegal. Signs of positive selection with respect to the level of education of potential migrants are only present in Ghana and Egypt. The differences in intentions by age and sex are also quite noteworthy, although the influence of sex differs quite distinctly across countries. Return migrants are on average more set to emigrating judging from their stated intentions although there are signs of negative selection within the group of return migrants in Ghana and Egypt. The network effects of potential migrants turn out to be less important than one might expect from actual migration behaviour. Both ties within the household with household members who have international migration experience and ties with current migrants affect intentions only in Ghana and Egypt and it affects the intentions of women far stronger than that of men. The implication of these findings is that due to the slow growth prospects of these African countries the pressure to emigrate 'out of Africa' can be a long lasting phenomenon.