02114cas a2200265 a 4500 AALejournalIMF017747 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781484307878 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Beaton, Kimberly. Smooth Operator : Remittances and Fiscal Shocks / Kimberly Beaton, Serhan Cevik, Seyed Reza Yousefi. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2017. 1 online resource (39 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students With 250 million migrants globally, remittances are one of the major sources of income in many developing countries. While there is abundant evidence that remittances facilitate consumption smoothing in receving countries, the literature has not considered whether this effect varies with the fiscal stance and during fiscal shocks. Therefore, we investigate the impact of remittances on the stability of household consumption, using both cross-country and household-level datasets. Our focus is on whether the consumption-smoothing effect changes with fiscal policy phases and whether remittances and government support are substitutes or complements in stabilizing household consumption. We find that remittances help smooth consumption, and hence improve welfare, more during fiscal consolidation episodes, while this impact is insignificant during fiscal expansions. The results also indicate that the effect is more pronounced in countries with greater reliance on remittances. Mode of access: Internet Cevik, Serhan. Yousefi, Seyed Reza. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2017/165 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2017/165/001.2017.issue-165-en.xml IMF e-Library