The Impact of Migrant Remittances on Forests - Some Evidence from Nepal

Sailesh Tiwari, Brown University
Keshav Bhattarai, University of Central Missouri

International migration has increased rapidly in recent decades and this has been accompanied by a large increase in transfers made by migrants to their home countries. In this paper we investigate the effect of the rural economic growth brought about by migration and remittances on Nepal’s Himalayan forests. We assemble a unique village-panel data set combining remote sensing data on land use and forest cover change with data from multiple rounds of living standards survey to test various inter relationships between population, economic growth and forests. Our results suggest that rural economic growth spurred by remittances has had a positive impact on forests. Although remittances also have a significant effect on local wages and land prices, the primary channel through which it seems to affect forests is through income.