Are Turkish Migrants Altruistic?

Abstract

We investigate in this paper whether the stable pattern of remittances over the last three decades can be explained by the altruistic behaviour. This possibility is tested by means of cointegration analysis, which is applied to Turkish remittances from Germany over the period 1962-2005. A single cointegrating relationship is found between the remittances of Turkish workers in Germany and the real Turkish GDP per capita, the real German GDP per capita, the stock of Turkish migrants in Germany, the real exchange rate, and the government instability. The negative coefficient associated with Turkish income and positive coefficients on the real exchange rate and political instability support the claim that Turkish remittances from Germany are altruistically motivated. In addition, we find that the coefficient on the stock of Turkish migrants to be equal to one.