An estimated 281 million migrants span the globe. The remittances they send home get a lot of attention from policymakers and development agencies like the World Bank due to their positive impacts on developing economies. This is because the movement of money is – for the most part – quantifiable, as much of it goes through formal banking channels. Migrants from developing countries, for instance, sent about US$605 billion home in 2021.
But there’s also an entire ecosystem that’s not measured and not monitored: gift-giving.
