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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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Because all surveyed households can be separated into one of these three groups, it is possible to compare the marginal spending patterns of remittance-and non-remittance receiving households across a broad range of consumption and investment goods, including food, education and housing.The results, which should be of interest to economic policymakers in Ghana, may have broader relevance to the remittances and development debate as well. Since household incomes in Ghana are a fraction of those in many other developing countries that receive international remittances (e.g. El Salvador, Mexico, and the Philippines), remittances may be used differently by households in Ghana than in the studies cited above. Thus, our results can add to the body of 4 comparative evidence available on the impact of remittances on countries at various levels of development.At the outset it should be emphasized that such a comparative analysis of household marginal spending behavior is subject to problems of both selection bias and endogeneity. If the three groups of households in Ghana --those receiving no remittances, internal remittances and international remittances -differ systematically in their unobservable characteristics (e.g. skills, motivation, ability), regression results based on the observed characteristics of those households