To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment
We conduct a remittance field experiment among Salvadoran migrants in the metro DC area. Migrants need to decide whether or not to remit funds to a recipient in El Salvador and if so how much. We maintain a (2 × 2) design in which the remittance budget has a value of $400 or $200, and the remitted f...
| Autores principales: | , |
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| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Lenguaje: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
Elsevier
2015
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/150469 |
| _version_ | 1855516260666703872 |
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| author | Torero, Máximo Viceisza, Angelino |
| author_browse | Torero, Máximo Viceisza, Angelino |
| author_facet | Torero, Máximo Viceisza, Angelino |
| author_sort | Torero, Máximo |
| collection | Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace) |
| description | We conduct a remittance field experiment among Salvadoran migrants in the metro DC area. Migrants need to decide whether or not to remit funds to a recipient in El Salvador and if so how much. We maintain a (2 × 2) design in which the remittance budget has a value of $400 or $200, and the remitted funds arrive as cash or grocery vouchers that are non-transferable and applicable to basic necessities that do not include alcohol and cigarettes. Each migrant is randomly allocated to one of the resulting four treatments. We test across these treatments whether control over remittance spending in the form of grocery vouchers affects remittance behavior. We find the following. Our quantitative findings suggest that migrants prefer a remittance to arrive as cash than as groceries when stakes are high. This result is robust to inclusion of a wide set of covariates and is consistent with a conceptual framework in which migrants have preferences over how recipients spend remittances. Our qualitative findings suggest that migrants integrate amounts sent in the experiment with the external environment for sending remittances. We explore the mechanisms underlying the main effect and find that migrants who more recently sent a remittance and, in certain specifications, male migrants exhibit a greater preference for cash. Some implications of our findings are discussed. |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | CGSpace150469 |
| institution | CGIAR Consortium |
| language | Inglés |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| publisherStr | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | CGSpace1504692024-10-25T07:53:47Z To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment Torero, Máximo Viceisza, Angelino field experimentation remittances We conduct a remittance field experiment among Salvadoran migrants in the metro DC area. Migrants need to decide whether or not to remit funds to a recipient in El Salvador and if so how much. We maintain a (2 × 2) design in which the remittance budget has a value of $400 or $200, and the remitted funds arrive as cash or grocery vouchers that are non-transferable and applicable to basic necessities that do not include alcohol and cigarettes. Each migrant is randomly allocated to one of the resulting four treatments. We test across these treatments whether control over remittance spending in the form of grocery vouchers affects remittance behavior. We find the following. Our quantitative findings suggest that migrants prefer a remittance to arrive as cash than as groceries when stakes are high. This result is robust to inclusion of a wide set of covariates and is consistent with a conceptual framework in which migrants have preferences over how recipients spend remittances. Our qualitative findings suggest that migrants integrate amounts sent in the experiment with the external environment for sending remittances. We explore the mechanisms underlying the main effect and find that migrants who more recently sent a remittance and, in certain specifications, male migrants exhibit a greater preference for cash. Some implications of our findings are discussed. 2015-04 2024-08-01T02:51:59Z 2024-08-01T02:51:59Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/150469 en Open Access Elsevier Torero, Maximo; and Viceisza, Angelino. 2015. To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 112(2015): 221 - 236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2015.01.012 |
| spellingShingle | field experimentation remittances Torero, Máximo Viceisza, Angelino To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment |
| title | To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment |
| title_full | To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment |
| title_fullStr | To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment |
| title_full_unstemmed | To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment |
| title_short | To remit, or not to remit: That is the question. A remittance field experiment |
| title_sort | to remit or not to remit that is the question a remittance field experiment |
| topic | field experimentation remittances |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10568/150469 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT toreromaximo toremitornottoremitthatisthequestionaremittancefieldexperiment AT viceiszaangelino toremitornottoremitthatisthequestionaremittancefieldexperiment |