Remittances and the Problem of Control: A Field Experiment Among Migrants from El Salvador

该项目测试是否将更多的汇款控制权交给美国-在萨尔瓦多的移徙者中，汇款受益家庭的福利得到改善，这有助于改善萨尔瓦多的汇款受益家庭。作者着重于提高移民的能力，以确保汇款存入并积累在母国的储蓄账户中。该项目开发并提供了新的储蓄设施，使萨尔瓦多移民能够将部分汇款直接存入萨尔瓦多的储蓄账户。为了检验控制储蓄的重要性，PI使用了随机现场实验方法：移民被随机分配到不同的治疗条件下，他们对账户的控制程度各不相同。该项目将通过对在美国的移民及其在萨尔瓦多萨尔瓦多的相应汇款接收家庭进行小组调查来衡量影响。智力优势该项目考察让移民直接控制储蓄的创新金融产品是否鼓励移民增加汇款金额和储蓄水平，并最终改善其家庭的福祉。这项研究的第一个关键贡献是使用随机现场实验方法提出这些新问题，以便因果影响渠道清晰。PI比较了不同待遇条件的影响，这些条件在向移民提供的控制量方面有所不同，因此能够确定控制对移民的财务决策和对萨尔瓦多家庭结果的因果影响。该项目将通过调查冲突和信息不对称在储蓄和汇款决策中的作用，为家庭内部决策文献做出贡献。研究国际移徙和家庭经济学的学者以及经济理论家也应该对研究结果感兴趣，以帮助确定控制问题和信息不对称是否确实是家庭成员之间资源转移的重要决定因素。该项目的另一个贡献是广泛的调查工作，其中包括在美国的移民及其在萨尔瓦多萨尔瓦多的相应家庭成员。这种匹配的移民/来源家庭调查很少尝试，因此，由此产生的数据集将是有价值的研究人员在经济学以及其他学科有兴趣获得一个完整的画面的社会经济状况的移民家庭。更广泛的影响这项工作揭示了一种新的方法，以最大限度地提高汇款对移民的原籍国的经济发展的影响的潜力。PI记录了当移民对汇款接收者如何使用汇款有更多控制权时所产生的好处。鉴于全世界的汇款流量巨大，一个行之有效的办法来加强汇款对发展的惠益，可以对国际发展竞技场的政策和做法产生重大影响。虽然这项研究的重点是加强移民对储蓄的控制，但这项研究的见解将表明，在住房、教育和小企业融资等其他领域加强移民控制的设施具有潜力。这项工作可以帮助制定美洲开发银行和世界银行等发展机构的政策，这（例如）可以向政府提供技术援助，所有的和私人的金融机构，正在寻求开发金融产品，使移民更多地控制汇款的使用。作者还希望这个项目，以鼓励创新者在发展政策竞技场考虑一系列广泛的干预措施，目标是发达国家的移民，而不仅仅是移民中的汇款接受者？来源国。如果我们的干预措施使萨尔瓦多家庭的福祉大大改善，我们希望这将促进针对发达国家移徙者的其他创新干预措施，以期改善家乡家庭的生活

This project tests whether putting more control over remittances into the hands of U.S.-based Salvadoran migrants leads to improved well-being for remittance-recipient households in El Salvador. The authors focus on improving the ability of migrants to ensure that remittances are deposited and accumulated in savings accounts in the home country. This project has developed and offered new savings facilities that allow Salvadoran migrants to directly channel some fraction of their remittances into savings accounts in El Salvador. To test the importance of control over savings, the PI uses randomized field experimental methods: migrants are randomly allocated to treatment conditions that vary in the amount of control they have over the accounts. The project will measure impacts via a panel survey of migrants in the U.S. and their corresponding remittance-recipient households in El Salvador.Intellectual MeritThis project examines whether innovative financial products, that give migrants direct control over savings, encourage migrants to raise their remittance amounts, savings levels, and ultimately improve the well-being of their families back home. The first key contribution of this research is to ask these new questions using randomized field experimental methods, so that causal channels of influence are clear. The PI compares impacts across treatment conditions that vary in the amount of control offered to the migrant, and so are able to determine the causal impact of control on the migrant's financial decision-making and on the outcomes of households in El Salvador.Migration creates changes in household structure that exacerbate intra-household information asymmetries. This project will contribute to the intra-household decision making literature by investigating the role of conflict and information asymmetries in saving and remittance sending decisions. The results should also be of interest to scholars of international migration and the economics of the family, as well as for economic theorists, in helping determine whether control issues and asymmetric information are indeed important determinants of resource transfers among family members. An additional contribution of the project is the extensive survey work, which will encompass both migrants in the U.S. and their corresponding family members in El Salvador. Such matched migrant/source household surveys are rarely attempted, and so the resulting dataset will be valuable for researchers in economics as well as other disciplines interested in obtaining a complete picture of the socio-economic situation of migrant families.Broader ImpactsThis work reveals the potential of a new approach to maximizing the impact of remittances on economic development in migrants' origin countries. The PI documents the benefits that result when migrants are given more control over how remittances are used by remittance recipients. Given the large magnitude of remittance flows worldwide, a proven approach to enhancing their development benefits can have substantial impact on policy and practice in the international development arena. While the study focuses on enhancing migrant control over savings, the insights from this study will suggest the potential of facilities enhancing migrant control in other areas, such as housing, education, and small enterprise funding. The work can help shape the policies of development institutions such as the IADB and the World Bank, which (for example) could provide technical assistance to government-owned and private financial institutions that are seeking to develop financial products that give migrants more control over remittance uses.The authors also aspire for this project to encourage innovators in the development policy arena to consider a broad set of interventions that target migrants in developed countries, rather than just remittance recipients in the migrants? origin countries. If our intervention leads to large gains in the well-being of families in El Salvador, we hope this will facilitate other innovative interventions targeting migrants in developed countries with an eye towards improving the lives of families back home