Migrant remittances and physical investment purchases: evidence from Kenyan households

This paper investigates the impact of remittances on household decisions to purchase physical investments in Kenya using household survey data. An instrumental variables approach is employed using rainfall variation and mobile network coverage as instruments to control for the endogeneity of remittances. The empirical evidence obtained is suggestive of remittances having a positive and significant effect on the decisions by households to purchase physical investments.