IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eab/develo/23086.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Motives and Giving Norms Behind Remittances : The Case of Filipino Overseas Workers and their Recipient Households

Author

Listed:
  • Michael M. Alba

    (Philippine Institute for Development Studies)

  • Jessaine Soraya C. Sugui

Abstract

The literature has focused on motives to explain remittance behavior. But as nonanonymous transfers, remittances are apt to be influenced by giving norms as well. We formulate an empirical specification that takes account of remittance motives involving workerhousehold pairs. We find that altruism dominates the exchange motive among overseas workers who are likely to be the primary breadwinners of their recipient households. We also find that, in the subsample in which overseas workers are likely to be secondary breadwinners, (a) household labor income is an endogenous explanatory variable and(b) the error covariance of the household income and remittance selection equations is positive. A possible reason for (a) is that secondary breadwinners use household income as an imperfect signal of opportunity cost or to detect unobserved effort, i.e., moral hazard, in generating income. As for (b), we surmise that it indicates the presence of incentivecompatible mechanisms against moral hazard. On giving norms, we find that, in samples that include overseas workers who are secondary breadwinners, remittance amounts are afflicted with negative selectivity. We present evidence that this is consistent with Filipino giving practices, in which everyone gives but in modest amounts.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael M. Alba & Jessaine Soraya C. Sugui, 2009. "Motives and Giving Norms Behind Remittances : The Case of Filipino Overseas Workers and their Recipient Households," Development Economics Working Papers 23086, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:eab:develo:23086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.eaber.org/node/23086
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Rivers, Douglas & Vuong, Quang H., 1988. "Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 347-366, November.
    3. de la Briere, Benedicte & Sadoulet, Elisabeth & de Janvry, Alain & Lambert, Sylvie, 2002. "The roles of destination, gender, and household composition in explaining remittances: an analysis for the Dominican Sierra," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 309-328, August.
    4. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation," International Economic Association Series, in: L.-A. Gérard-Varet & S.-C. Kolm & J. Mercier Ythier (ed.), The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, chapter 7, pages 153-173, Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Osili, Una Okonkwo, 2007. "Remittances and savings from international migration: Theory and evidence using a matched sample," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 446-465, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kazi Abdul, Mannan & Khandaker Mursheda, Farhana, 2015. "Determinants of remittances in rural Bangladesh:An econometric analysis of the educational attainments of the households," MPRA Paper 97471, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2015.
    2. Aísa, R. & Andaluz, J. & Larramona, G., 2011. "How does bargaining power affect remittances?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 47-54.
    3. Kazi Abdul, Mannan & LJ, Fredericks, 2015. "Determinants and socioeconomic impact of remittances between Bangladesh and Italy- A multivariate analysis of religion of rural households," MPRA Paper 97467, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2015.
    4. Meyer, Wiebke, 2012. "Motives for remitting from Germany to Kosovo," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 69, number 69.
    5. Emara, Noha & Zhang, Yuanhao, 2021. "The non-linear impact of digitization on remittances inflow: Evidence from the BRICS," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(4).
    6. Meyer, Wiebke & Mollers, Judith & Buchenrieder, Gertrud, 2012. "A behavioural approach to remittances analysis," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126428, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael M. Alba & Jessaine Soraya C. Sugui, 2009. "Motives and Giving Norms Behind Remittances : The Case of Filipino Overseas Workers and their Recipient HouseholdsÂ," Labor Economics Working Papers 22947, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    2. Michael M. Alba & Jessaine Soraya C. Sugui, 2011. "Motives and Giving Norms Behind Remittances: the Case of Filipino Overseas Workers and their Recipient Households," Working Papers PMMA 2011-06, PEP-PMMA.
    3. Alba, Michael M. & Sugui, Jessaine Soraya C., 2009. "Motives and Giving Norms behind Remittances: the Case of Filipino Overseas Workers and their Recipient Households," Discussion Papers DP 2009-26, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    4. Georgarakos, Dimitris & Fürth, Sven, 2015. "Household repayment behavior: The role of social capital and institutional, political, and religious beliefs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 249-265.
    5. Falk Armin & Kosfeld Michael, 2012. "It's all about Connections: Evidence on Network Formation," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-36, September.
    6. Pingle, Mark & Mitchell, Mike, 2002. "What motivates positional concerns for income?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 127-148, February.
    7. Erin L. Krupka & Roberto A. Weber, 2013. "Identifying Social Norms Using Coordination Games: Why Does Dictator Game Sharing Vary?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 495-524, June.
    8. Chrysanthos Dellarocas & Charles A. Wood, 2008. "The Sound of Silence in Online Feedback: Estimating Trading Risks in the Presence of Reporting Bias," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 54(3), pages 460-476, March.
    9. Lauren Cohen & Andrea Frazzini & Christopher J. Malloy, 2012. "Hiring Cheerleaders: Board Appointments of "Independent" Directors," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(6), pages 1039-1058, June.
    10. Basov, S., 2001. "An Evolutionary Model of Reciprocity," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 812, The University of Melbourne.
    11. Dustmann, Christian & Mestres, Josep, 2010. "Remittances and temporary migration," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 62-70, May.
    12. Jonathan D. Cohen, 2005. "The Vulcanization of the Human Brain: A Neural Perspective on Interactions Between Cognition and Emotion," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(4), pages 3-24, Fall.
    13. Jung-Kyoo Choi, 2008. "Play locally, learn globally: group selection and structural basis of cooperation," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 239-257, December.
    14. Ramalingam, Abhijit, 2009. ""Endogenous" Relative Concerns: The Impact of Workers' Characteristics on Status and Pro ts in the Firm," MPRA Paper 18759, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Boddewyn, Jean J. & Peng, Mike W., 2021. "Reciprocity and informal institutions in international market entry," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(1).
    16. Funk, Matt, 2008. "On the Problem of Sustainable Economic Development: A Theoretical Solution to this Prisoner's Dilemma," MPRA Paper 19025, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Jun 2008.
    17. Philip Oreopoulos & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2009. "How large are returns to schooling? Hint: Money isn't everything," NBER Working Papers 15339, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jan Schnellenbach, 2006. "Appeasing nihilists? Some economic thoughts on reducing terrorist activity," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 301-313, December.
    19. Kaczmarczyk, Pawel, 2013. "Money for Nothing? Ukrainian Immigrants in Poland and their Remitting Behaviors," IZA Discussion Papers 7666, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Jessica L. Cohen & William T. Dickens, 2002. "A Foundation for Behavioral Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 335-338, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    remittances; remittance motives; giving norms;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F24 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Remittances

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eab:develo:23086. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Shiro Armstrong (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eaberau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.