Despite early predictions of a large collapse, remittance flows to developing countries have been surprisingly resilient during the COVID-19 pandemic. This column describes how migrants appear to have responded positively to rising COVID-19 infection rates in their home countries despite economic challenges in host countries. Fiscal stimulus in host countries played a role in keeping remittances buoyant. Travel restrictions, on the other hand, seem to have positively affected official remittance flows, suggesting such restrictions led migrants to use formal channels to send remittances instead of informal channels.
