Steady streams and sudden bursts: persistence patterns in remittance decisions

This paper is the first systematic attempt to investigate the factors affecting time persistence in individual remittance behaviour. By using micro-level longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we apply a wide variety of discrete choice static and dynamic panel models to analyse the decision to remit. Our results provide evidence in favour of an intertemporal strategy. The persistence in remittance decisions is significantly influenced by “true state dependence”: migrants that remitted in the previous year have a significantly higher propensity to remit this year as well. We also show that remittance time patterns depend on both observable and unobservable individual socioeconomic characteristics, and in particular, that the household’s transnational composition plays an important role in determining remittance behaviour.