Network Structure of Global Remittances

Remittances are flows of money between countries due to migrants
sending money back to relatives in their country of origin. As such,
they form a directed and weighted network of money flows between
countries, and the techniques of (social) network analysis may be
applied. There has been an increased interest in the economics
literature on remittances recently, due to their potential importance
with respect to money laundering, tax evasion, and potential impact on
national economies. However, there has been to date very limited
network analysis applied to the global networks of remittances. Here
we use publicly available data from the World Bank to examine the
global network of remittances between countries, examining network
centrality, community structure, and "small world" properties.  We
also describe progress towards the construction of more sophisticated
network models, accounting for various geographical, demographic, and
economic factors.