Intra-household allocation with shared expenditure choices. Experimental evidence from Filipino migrants

Sharing information concerning expenditure choices between a migrant and the recipient affects the migrant’s allocation patterns. In a lab-in-the-field experiment, Filipino migrants are asked to earmark an in-kind budget to be delivered to their most closely connected household (MCCH). When the MCCH is fully aware of the migrant’s decisions (i.e., symmetric information), we observe that the migrant raises the portion for consumption goods in the range of 10.0–10.5% with respect to the case when the migrant’s choices are not disclosed (i.e., asymmetric information). Moreover, when sharing information, the migrant relies on more involvement of the recipient household and lowers by 7–9% the allocation to expenses she could monitor ex-post more strictly. The former result is consistent with the signaling motive, whereas the latter supports the presence of strategic behavior by the migrant remitter. Education allocations are significantly higher in intra- rather than inter-household transfers and this provides insights for conditional cash transfer policies

Body mass index and social interactions from adolescence to adulthood

A dynamic linear-in-means model is applied in order to analyse the importance of social ties for the body weight-related behaviour of US youth. The methodology shows how to estimate peer effects free of the ‘reflection problem’ in a dynamic context where individual and group-specific unobservable effects are controlled for. The results show that the main drivers for the body weight-related behaviour are past and peer effects. For individuals who were normal weight or obese during adolescence, past and peer effects are shown to be both relevant. Peer effects, instead, explain more the variation in the body mass index (BMI) for individuals who were overweight during adolescence, showing in this way the importance of social interactions for body weight-related behaviour

Directing Remittances to Education with Soft and Hard Commitments: Evidence from a Lab-in-the-Field Experiment and New Product Take-up among Filipino Migrants in Rome

This paper tests how migrants’ willingness to remit changes when given the ability to direct remittances to educational purposes using different forms of commitment. Variants of a dictator game in a lab-in-thefield experiment with Filipino migrants in Rome are used to examine remitting behavior under varying degrees of commitment. These range from the soft commitment of simply labeling remittances as being for education, to the hard commitment of having funds directly paid to a school and the student’s educational performance monitored. We find that the introduction of simple labeling for education raises remittances by more than 15 percent. Adding the ability to directly send this funding to the school adds only a further 2.2 percent. We randomly vary the information asymmetry between migrants and their most closely connected household, but find no significant change in the remittance response to these forms of commitment as information varies. Behavior in these games is then shown to be predictive of take-up of a new financial product called EduPay, designed to allow migrants to directly pay remittances to schools in the Philippines. We find this take-up is largely driven by a response to the ability to label remittances for education, rather than to the hard commitment feature of directly paying schools

Directing remittances to education with soft and hard commitments: Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment and new product take-up among Filipino migrants in Rome

This paper tests how migrants’ willingness to remit changes when given the ability to direct remittances to educational purposes using different forms of commitment. Variants of a dictator game in a lab-in-the-field experiment with Filipino migrants in Rome are used to examine remitting behavior under varying degrees of commitment. These range from the soft commitment of simply labeling remittances as being for education, to the hard commitment of having funds directly paid to a school and the student’s educational performance monitored. We find that the introduction of simple labeling for education raises remittances by more than 15 percent. Adding the ability to directly send this funding to the school adds only a further 2.2 percent. We randomly vary the information asymmetry between migrants and their most closely connected household, but find no significant change in the remittance response to these forms of commitment as information varies. Behavior in these games is then shown to be predictive of take-up of a new financial product called EduPay, designed to allow migrants to directly pay remittances to schools in the Philippines. We find this take-up is largely driven by a response to the ability to label remittances for education, rather than to the hard commitment feature of directly paying schools