An alternative quality of life ranking on the basis of remittances

Abstract

Remittances provide an essential connection between people working abroad and their home countries. This paper considers these transfers as a measure of preferences revealed by the workers, underlying a ranking of countries around the world. In particular, we use the World Bank bilateral remittances data of international salaries and interpersonal transfers between 2010 and 2015 to compare European countries. The suggested least squares method has favourable axiomatic properties. Our ranking reveals a crucial aspect of quality of life and may become an alternative to various composite indices.