Savings in Transnational Households: A Field Experiment among Migrants from El Salvador - Working Paper 20024 - March 2014

Aug 26, 2026

A randomized field experiment tests strategies to stimulate savings by international migrants in their origin country. The study finds migrants value and use opportunities to gain greater control over financial activities at home. In collaboration with a Salvadoran bank, U.S.-based migrants were offered El Salvador bank accounts, with control over home-country savings varied across treatment groups. The most control produced the largest savings accumulation at the partner bank, with no signs of savings merely reallocated from other mechanisms. Increased control does not change remittances sent home.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages52

Reading Time2 h 11 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background on household conflict and unitary model

Information asymmetry and transnational households

Rationale for the experiment

NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES SAVINGS IN TRANSNATIONAL HOUSEHOLDS: A FIELD EXPERIMENT AMONG MIGRANTS FROM EL SALVADOR Nava Ashraf Diego Aycinena Claudia Martínez A. Dean Yang Working Paper 20024 [http://www.nber.org/papers/w20024](http://www.nber.org/papers/w20024) NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 March 2014 This paper was previously titled “Remittances and the Problem of Control.” We thank the core members of the project team at ESSMF (Angela Gonzalez, Michelle Guevara, Ronald Luna, Amaris Rodriguez, and Eric Rubin), at FUSADES (Margarita Sanfeliu and Mauricio Shi), and at Banco Agricola (Hector Aguiar, Gustavo Denys, Carla de Espinoza, Mauricio Gallardo, Oscar Hernandez, Sabina Lopez, Ernesto Magana, Katya O’Byrne, and Paul Ponce) . We greatly appreciate the collaboration of Enilson Solano and the El Salvador embassy in Washington DC. We received valuable feedback and suggestions from Manuel Agosin, Natasha Bajuk, Catia Batista, Charlie Brown, Michael Clemens, Angus Deaton, Esther Duflo, Suzanne Duryea, Jon Guryan, Ricardo Hausmann, Gabriela Inchauste, Takatoshi Kamezawa, Michael Kremer, Steve Levitt, John List, Adriana Lleras-Muney, Ernesto Lopez-Cordova, Osmel Manzano, Doug Massey, Margarita Mooney, Hugo Ñopo, Chris Paxson, Alejandro Portes, Jesse Rothstein, Jesse Shapiro, Ernesto Stein, Bryce Millett Steinberg, Mel Stephens, Don Terry, Steve Wilson, Viviana Zelizer, and participants in several seminars. Alejandra Aponte, Fernando Balzaretti, Sebastian Calonico, Carly Farver, Andres Shahidinejad, and Cristian Sanchez provided excellent research assistance. This research was made possible by financial support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the National Science Foundation, the Multilateral Investment Fund, the Empowerment Lab at Harvard University’s Center for International Development, and the University of Michigan’s International Policy Center. Dean Yang acknowledges research support from National Science Foundation award SES-0851570 . The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2014 by Nava Ashraf, Diego Aycinena, Claudia Martínez A., and Dean Yang. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Savings in Transnational Households: A Field Experiment among Migrants from El Salvador Nava Ashraf, Diego Aycinena, Claudia Martínez A., and Dean Yang NBER Working Paper No. 20024 March 2014 JEL No. F22,O16 ABSTRACT We implemented a randomized field experiment that tested ways to stimulate savings by international migrants in their origin country. We find that migrants value and take advantage of opportunities to exert greater control over financial activities in their home countries. In partnership with a Salvadoran bank, we offered U.S.-based migrants bank accounts in El Salvador. We randomly varied migrant control over El Salvador-based savings by offering different types of accounts across treatment groups. Migrants offered the greatest degree of control accumulated the most savings at the partner bank, compared to others offered less or no control over savings. Impacts are likely to represent increases in total savings: there is no evidence that savings increases were simply reallocated from other savings mechanisms. Enhanced control over home-country savings does not affect remittances sent home by migrants. Nava Ashraf Harvard Business School Baker Library 443 Soldiers Field Boston, MA 02163 and NBER[nashraf@hbs.edu](nashraf@hbs.edu

FAQs

What does the paper test in the field experiment?

It tests approaches to stimulate savings by international migrants in their origin country using randomized treatment variations.

How is migrant control over savings implemented and varied?

Partnered with a Salvadoran bank, the study offered U.S.-based migrants El Salvador bank accounts, randomly varying the degree of control across treatment groups.

What are the main findings on savings and remittances?

Greater control over home-country savings leads to higher accumulated savings at the partner bank, with no evidence that gains come only from shifting other savings. Enhanced control does not affect remittances sent home.

Aug 26, 2026

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