On the Microeconomic Foundations of the Role of Immigration on Growth: Experimental Evidence from Galgo Credits

Last registered on June 16, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
On the Microeconomic Foundations of the Role of Immigration on Growth: Experimental Evidence from Galgo Credits
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0016224
Initial registration date
June 13, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
June 16, 2025, 7:35 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
Universidad de Chile

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Universidad Adolfo Ibañez
PI Affiliation
UC Berkeley

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-09-02
End date
2026-06-30
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
This project examines the challenges that international migrants face when integrating into local labor and credit markets. Galgo employs innovative scoring methods and diverse data sources to provide capital credits in the form of motorbikes to vulnerable entrepreneurs in Colombia, which are often overlooked by traditional banking institutions. Specifically, Galgo's loan portfolio targets both native and immigrant borrowers, with a significant number of loans granted to recent Venezuelan migrants. Through a randomized experiment, the project aims to assess the impact of the motorbike loans on capital productivity for both migrant and native entrepreneurs, considering loan repayment rates, sales, revenues, and labor market indicators as outcomes. In addition, the study will analyze potential credit discrimination against migrants and its impact on capital productivity among entrepreneurs.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gertler, Paul, Ana Maria Montoya and Raimundo Undurraga. 2025. "On the Microeconomic Foundations of the Role of Immigration on Growth: Experimental Evidence from Galgo Credits." AEA RCT Registry. June 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16224-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

Sponsors

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Galgo, a Fintech company operating in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Chile, offers motorbike loans through an online platform as well as face-to-face at point of sale (POS) locations, enabling clients to access credit seamlessly through their preferred channel. What distinguishes Galgo from other Fintechs is its unique business model, which was specifically designed to address the challenges migrants face in accessing credit. Initially focused exclusively on serving migrant clients, the company has since expanded its reach to include a mixed portfolio of both native and migrant customers in each country.

In order to minimize credit risk, Galgo employs a novel risk-scoring procedure that integrates diverse financial data sources from both origin and destination (host) countries to thoroughly evaluate each loan application. This process goes beyond traditional credit assessments by incorporating a broad spectrum of variables. In addition to basic demographics (such as age and gender) and the specific attributes of the motorbike the client aims to acquire, Galgo leverages detailed information about the applicant's debt history, traffic fines, and driver license characteristics—sourced from both their origin and host countries. These factors are carefully weighted within a dynamic and adaptive risk-scoring model that continuously refines its predictions based on evolving data patterns. By adopting this comprehensive and data-driven approach, Galgo ensures that motorbike loans are extended with fair and reasonable credit conditions, making financing accessible to immigrant and vulnerable populations who often face restrictive terms or outright exclusion from traditional banking institutions.

Intervention Start Date
2024-09-02
Intervention End Date
2025-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
loan repayment rates, business performance indicators (sales and revenues), and labor market participation (employment)
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The experiment is designed to recover clean estimates for the causal effects of capital credit access (in the form of motorbikes) on key outcomes such as loan repayment rates, business performance indicators (sales and revenues), and labor market participation (employment).

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
mobility and access to economic opportunities, shifts in perceptions of integration, changes in entrepreneurial aspirations, social networks, psychological resilience (grit as measured by the Big Five test), and mental health factors like stress and anxiety.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
In addition, the project will explore mechanisms driving these impacts, including enhanced mobility and access to economic opportunities, shifts in perceptions of integration into the Colombian economy, and changes in entrepreneurial aspirations. To further understand the drivers of potential heterogeneous effects across migrants and locals, the study will investigate the role of social networks, psychological resilience (grit as measured by the Big Five test), and mental health factors like stress and anxiety.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We randomize Galgo's loans through a rolling randomization procedure, where individual applicants are assigned to treatment and control groups on a case-by-case basis. To ensure balance across key characteristics, randomization is stratified by groups of interest. Specifically, applicants are stratified based on their native or migrant status and their classification as having a high or low risk score, with randomization occurring within these strata.

The dynamics of the demand for Galgo loans is short-term: clients submit their application in any point in time, and a fast response is critical to secure participation and take-up. Hence, it is not feasible to pool the full experimental sample of applicants and randomize at once. With that in mind, we designed an online and automated operation system that randomizes in real time, case by case, as loan applications come in. In addition to make randomization possible by reducing the costs of waiting for a large batch of cases, the platform used for the operation allows to supervise and give immediate feedback to both ends of the team (Galgo and research team).

Importantly, not all loan applications participate in the experiment, but only a random sample of them. While the whole potential clients of Galgo pass through the platform, some of them are randomly selected to participate in the experiment, which are then randomly assigned to treatment or control status.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer. Online and automated operation system that randomizes in real time, case by case, as loan applications come in.
Randomization Unit
loan application
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
0
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,000 applications
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
1,000 treatments; 1,000 controls
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
We anticipate obtaining an experimental sample of 2,000 applicants, which would allows us to identify an effect size of 0.15 SDs (equivalent to about 118,000 pesos or 5\% of the average income), with more than 80\% of statistical power.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
COMITÉ DE ÉTICA Y BIOSEGURIDAD PARA LA INVESTIGACIÓN FACULTAD DE CIENCIAS FÍSICAS Y MATEMÁTICAS UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE
IRB Approval Date
2025-06-03
IRB Approval Number
022