Savings in Transnational Households: A Field Experiment Among Salvadoran Migrants

A randomized field experiment tested ways to stimulate savings by international migrants in their origin country. The study, by Claudia Martinez A. of Harvard University, offered U.S.-based migrants from El Salvador bank accounts with varying degrees of control over savings in El Salvador. It found migrants offered the greatest control accumulated the most savings, with impacts likely representing total savings increases rather than reallocations.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the impact of account control on migrant savings accumulation based on the described randomized treatment groups.
• Studying the relationship between enhanced savings control and remittance flows based on the finding that remittances were unaffected.
• Modeling financial decision-making in transnational households based on the experiment's focus on migrants in the U.S. and banks in El Salvador.

Strengths

• Data originates from a randomized field experiment, which suggests a strong causal inference design.
• Study was conducted in partnership with a Salvadoran bank, indicating real-world financial data.
• Findings are based on comparing specific treatment groups offered different types of accounts.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Harvard University (Claudia Martinez A.), via paperswithcode and NBER.

Collection Method

Randomized field experiment conducted in partnership with a Salvadoran bank.

Geography

El Salvador (origin country) and the United States (migrant location).