Migration, Remittances, and Petty Corruption in Africa

Abstract

Driven by rising access to mobile money and growing diaspora communities, remittances to African countries have reached record highs. Yet while scholars have connected aggregate remittance flows to macro-level political change, we know little about how these transfers shape individual-level dynamics among recipients. Since private sector markets are weak in many parts of Africa, we argue that recipients cannot easily substitute government services and so use their outside income to seek preferential access to them instead. This increases exposure to bribes from public officials, driving broader perceptions of corruption and reducing willingness to pay tax. We present evidence from survey data across the African continent, a pre-registered list experiment in Ghana, and in-depth focus group discussions with recipients. We also introduce novel measures of remittances that capture distinct dimensions of receipt and compare dynamics across them. The paper contributes to the literature on remittances and political behavior, alongside ongoing policy debates about cash transfers, corruption, and institutional development.