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Yang discusses COVID and migrant remittances amidst World Bank warning

April 22, 2020

PSC Research Professor, Dean Yang comments in the LA Times story about the World Bank projection of sharp decrease in immigrants ability to remit money home during COVID-19 crisis. Historically, remittances have helped developing countries weather shocks, such as natural disasters or civil unrest, said Yang, who has studied the flow of remittances to the Philippines. When a prolonged drought gutted the Philippines’ agricultural sector in the 1990s, Yang said, families with relatives working abroad were able to replace about 60% of income lost to the crisis through remittances.But “this is an unusual crisis,” he said, “in that the whole world is suffering.”

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