Does altruism matter for remittances?

Alexis Antoniades, Ganesh Seshan, Roberto Weber, Robertas Zubrickas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (SciVal)
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Abstract

We provide a direct test of the impact of altruism on remittances. From a sample of Indian migrant workers in Qatar, we elicit the propensity to share with others from their responses in a dictator game and use it as a proxy for altruism. For the entire sample, we find that altruism does not seem to matter. However, we document a strong positive relationship between altruism and remittances for a subset of migrants with a loan obligation, whereas indirect tests of altruism, typically used in the literature, would fail to establish this relationship. We explain the role of loan obligations with a standard remittance model extended with reference-dependent preferences.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)225-242
Number of pages18
JournalOxford Economic Papers
Volume70
Issue number1
Early online date11 Aug 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2018

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics

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