Extensive Margin Remittance Responsiveness
RCTClinical Trial
Evaluating overall remittance intervention effectiveness often focuses on total cash volume, masking subtle shifts in transaction frequency and habits.
Picture this
Lowering friction and introducing soft features encourages users to initiate additional transactions more often, even if the average dollar amount per transfer remains unchanged.
What the evidence says
Across the full sample, remittance labeling caused a statistically significant increase on the extensive margin of sending at least one weekly remittance (+0.007 probability, p < 0.10), while the effect on total weekly winsorized remittance amount (-29.78 PhP, p > 0.10) and total remittance index (+0.013, p > 0.10) was statistically non-significant.
- Who was studied
- N = 4,451 Filipino migrant workers in UAE across 137,927 weekly observations over 30 weeks.
- How
- 30-week RCT intent-to-treat (ITT) OLS regression with individual and week fixed effects comparing treatment and control groups across transaction margins.
What to do
Measure transaction frequency on the extensive margin alongside total transfer volume when testing financial technology innovations.
From the source
"We find a significant effect on the probability of sending remittances (column (1) in Panel (a)), whereas for all the other outcomes the coefficient on treatment is small in magnitude and not statistically significantly different from zero."
A Field Experiment among Filipino Migrant Workers in the UAE.pdf