Remittances and intra-household gender bias

Previous studies reporting mixed results on how remittance receipts affect household behavior miss an important mechanism governing that effect. Using data from a panel survey of Indonesian households, I examine whether, for a given household, remittances from different senders affect household behavior differently. The relationship between the sender and the recipient household does indeed impact how remittances are spent. My instrumental variables results indicate that remittances from the spouse’s parents differentially raise expenditures on schooling, while remittances sent by the parents of the household head have no such differential impact. Importantly for the broader development implications of these results, most remittances in my data originate from inside Indonesia, households in my sample contain both a head and spouse, and remittance senders are not necessarily migrants of a temporary nature.  (View working paper - preliminary and incomplete)