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tells a story of immigrants in New York City who are collecting donationsto help purchase a fire truck for their hometown villages (Cao 2005). Theirplan is to buy the most advanced fire truck in the United States and thendonate it to their hometown village. The same story also highlights the newreality of transnational communities in the case of Fujian; lives in FujianProvince and a migrant community in New York City are increasinglyconnected. Overall, these initiatives help make these migrant-sendingcommunities more attractive places to live, thereby retaining people whomight otherwise migrate.Remittance patterns are clearly constrained by the high cost of migrationin the case of Fujianese immigrants. Thus, undocumented migrants remitmore (in order to pay off the debt) in general than migrants with a greencard. The cost of the migration journey limits the ability for migrants toremit money for productive uses before the debt is paid off. In addition,the location of children also affects remittance patterns. The higher theproportion of children residing in China, the more likely migrants remit. 6Prior work suggests that local infrastructure is important in affectingthe emigrant’s decision to repatriate. We find some support for this. Thedistance to the nearest highway is an important predictor of remittancebehavior (an amount of remittances). We also find that in agriculturaldominatedvillages, immigrant households are more likely to use themoney for business, local education, and public projects than in other typesof communities. We suggest that these rural communities tend to have astrong sense of community identity and, therefore, immigrant householdsare more likely to invest in business, as well as local education and publicprojects.288To further examine the linkage between international migration anddevelopment, we move away from Fujian Province to examine broadlyhow international migration has affected China’s national development. Itis well known by now that for the past twenty-five years or so, China hasenjoyed the most phenomenal economic growth that the world has ever seen(a consistent growth rate of 9-10 percent). Although factors beneath thiseconomic record are complicated, we argue that the initial investment fromoverseas Chinese played a crucial role at least in the initial years of China’seconomic takeoff. In some ways, this is by policy design of the Chinesegovernment. The first four Special Economic Zones in China to attractforeign investment are strategically located in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou,and Xiamen. The first three of them are in Guangdong Province, and the6The detailed results are available from the authors on request.