Social connections and remittance flows: an exploratory analysis of Facebook data

Remittances are a major source of finance for countries around the world and are increasingly important for sustainable development. However, the available data estimating international remittance flows is often criticised. This report makes a novel contribution to understanding the factors which influence the volume of bilateral remittance flows, and in doing so highlights a potential opportunity for the refinement of international remittance flow estimates. Specifically, the study uses innovative data from Index to explain bilateral remittance flows. This data source is positively associated with remittance flows and the findings are robust and statistically significant. These findings have two key implications. Firstly, they show that, alongside data on migrant stocks, economic and geographic variables the connections between migrants and their countries and communities of origin make an important contribution to explaining bilateral remittance flows. Secondly, they illustrate how innovative data from non-traditional sources can provide new opportunities for analysing and estimating bilateral remittances.