Remittances and households' livelihood in the context of Covid-19: Evidence from Burkina Faso

Using data from a migration survey conducted in Burkina Faso, this research seeks to understand the Covid-19 pandemic's effects on migrant remittances and households' livelihood. Results suggest that migrant households and those receiving remittances are less likely to report a negative effect of the pandemic on their livelihood. More precisely, we find that if remittances sent by migrants remained the same or increased during the pandemic, households are less likely to report a negative effect on their livelihood. We resort to a recursive bivariate probit model and a two-stage residual inclusion estimator, using variables that capture xenophobia and possession of identity papers as instruments for remittances.