Price dispersion in the remittance industry: The role of fintech, comparison shopping, and other factors

Last registered on March 04, 2021

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Price dispersion in the remittance industry: The role of fintech, comparison shopping, and other factors
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0006475
Initial registration date
March 03, 2021

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
March 04, 2021, 6:37 AM EST

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
Spelman College

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Duke University

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2021-03-03
End date
2024-05-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Remittances to developing countries surpassed US$ 550 billion in 2019. Several micro-level studies have reported impacts of remittances on recipient households. So, there have been claims to reduce the price of sending money. Comparison websites, i.e., platforms like kayak.com but for sending money, have been proposed as a potential tool for reducing remittances prices; however, their impacts are likely to depend on the market failure in question. For example, if migrant consumers shop or search inefficiently, comparison websites are more likely to have an impact. On the other hand, if the market inefficiency is primarily driven by supply-side barriers such as the last-mile problem or regulation, comparison websites are less likely to have an impact. This project will assess whether comparison websites, and comparison shopping more generally, have the potential to impact the demand and supply sides of the remittance industry. In so doing, it will seek to describe consumer, firm, and industry characteristics that may moderate such impacts. The project will have three stages. The first stage, which is laid out in this version of the pre-analysis plan (PAP), will exploit existing data to do a first pass on the research questions. The second stage, which will be pre-registed as an updated version of this PAP, will collect primary data and additional secondary data to pin down causal factors. The final stage will incorporate findings from the first two stages to assess potential welfare impacts.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Viceisza, Angelino and Daniel Xu. 2021. "Price dispersion in the remittance industry: The role of fintech, comparison shopping, and other factors." AEA RCT Registry. March 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.6475-1.0
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Intervention Start Date
2021-10-01
Intervention End Date
2022-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Randomization Unit
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Sample size: planned number of observations
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Please see attached pre-analysis plan for details.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Spelman College
IRB Approval Date
2018-06-22
IRB Approval Number
6901D2
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

viceisza_xu_pap_mar2021.pdf

MD5: b84e557233c3316b45fce8228f976b03

SHA1: 07a8564afabe81669c572b485255fc2a09c5aa79

Uploaded At: March 03, 2021