On the Global Determinants of Visiting Home

Abstract

In this paper, we examine possible macro-level determinants underlying the number of trips emigrants make back home by exploiting a panel of data comprising 25 countries over the period 1995-2010. To guide the empirical work, we first construct a simple model of the decision by emigrants to visit their home country. The model predicts, among other things, that the effects of distance on the frequency of visiting home are negative but the impact of the host country's wage on the decision to visit home is ambiguous: It depends on the legal status of the emigrants in the host country. Our empirical results based on a pooled estimator support these predictions. First, the number of trips back home is inversely related to distance but positively related to income and institutional quality. Second, emigrants living in Africa and North America are less likely to visit home, whereas emigrants living in the Arabian Gulf countries visit home more often. The results from cross-sectional estimations provide very similar results, indicating that our results are robust to alternative estimation approaches.

What about relative corruption? The impact of the relative corruption on the inbound tourism to Turkey

“…Based on the contributions of tourism to the economy and improvements in the world tourism market, governments aim to develop competitive strategies for attracting more tourists (Yilanci & Eris, 2012). The literature considers many variables, such as border, common language, distance, financial crisis, gross domestic product (GDP), immigration, infectious diseases, real exchange rate, religion, and soap opera exports as the determinants of inbound tourism (Balli, Balli, & Cebeci, 2013;Balli, Balli, & Louis, 2016;Balli, Basher, Louis, & Mahmud, 2017;Fletcher & Morakabati, 2008;Kuo, Chen, Tseng, Ju, & Huang, 2008;Page, Song, & Wu, 2012;Seetaram, 2012;Wang, 2009). Recently, corruption is also considered as a potential determinant of the inbound tourism demand.…”

Emigrants’ visit home and remittance inflows nexus

“…Contextually, emigrants might visit their motherland on multiple occasions to see friends and relatives (VFR), invest, plan for retirement or permanent return (Balli et al, 2017; McCann et al, 2009; Waldorf, 1995), attend weddings, mourn, learn about their culture and history or stay active and support communities in their homeland (Gibson & McKenzie, 2011; Zhao, 2002). In the meantime, emigrants’ motivations to remit may involve investment, loan repayment or self-interest (Lucas & Stark, 1985).…”