That contrasts with many global contexts, where the situation was more like that in Tonga (e.g. Ratha et al. The Reserve Bank of Tonga believed in 2011 that private remittances were unlikely ever to recover to the high level they had reached in 2008, highlighting the vulnerability of the country’s economy to fluctuations in the global economy, there was no obvious reason why they should recover. In Samoa, at least by early 2011, remittances had returned to normal’ pre-crisis levels, and perhaps exceeded them, as some overseas Samoans compensated for the previous difficult period.