Data for: Don't tell on me: Experimental evidence of asymmetric information in transnational households

Abstract of associated article: Although most theoretical models of household decision making assume perfect information, empirical studies suggest that information asymmetries can have large impacts on resource allocation. I demonstrate the importance of these asymmetries in transnational households, where physical distance between family members can make information barriers especially acute. I implement an experiment among migrants in Washington, DC, and their families in El Salvador that examines how information asymmetries can have strategic and inadvertent impacts on remittance decisions. Migrants make an incentivized decision over how much of a cash windfall to remit, and recipients decide how they will spend a remittance. Migrants strategically send home less when their choice is not revealed to recipients. Recipients make spending choices closer to migrants' preferences when the migrants' preferences are shared, regardless of whether or not the spending choices are revealed to the migrants, suggesting that recipients' choices are inadvertently affected by imperfect information.

相关研究论文摘要：尽管多数家庭决策理论模型均假设个体具备完全信息，但实证研究表明，信息不对称会对资源配置产生重大影响。本文以跨国家庭为研究情境，论证了此类信息不对称的重要性：家庭成员间的物理距离会令信息壁垒问题尤为凸显。笔者在华盛顿特区的移民群体及其位于萨尔瓦多的家人中开展了一项实验，以此探究信息不对称如何对汇款决策产生策略性与非故意性影响。实验中，移民需在激励机制下决定将多少意外现金所得汇往国内，而汇款接收方则需自主决定该笔汇款的使用方式。当移民的汇款选择未告知接收方时，移民会策略性地减少汇款金额。当移民的偏好被共享时，接收方的汇款用途选择会更贴近移民的偏好——无论该用途选择是否告知移民，该现象均成立，这表明接收方的决策会因信息不完善而受到非故意性影响。