Are Oil Prices and Remittance Outflows Asymmetric? Evidence From Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Understanding the nexus between oil prices and remittance outflows is critical for both remitting and recipient countries. This is the first study that examines the asymmetric impact of oil prices on remittance outflows for Saudi Arabia. Relying on the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag model and taking advantage of yearly data over the period 1980-2018, we document that: (i) oil prices are asymmetrically related to remittance outflows but only in the long-run; and (ii) positive innovations in oil prices are conducive to remittance outflows, whereas negative innovations do not affect remittance outflows significantly.