Dean Yang
Biographic Data
| ID | 3605151 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Dean Yang |
| GIVEN NAMES | Dean |
| FAMILY NAME | Yang |
| SIGNATURE | YANG D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5165-3816 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 245 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Information and immigrant settlement
We study a randomly-assigned program providing information on U.S. settlement for new Filipino immigrants. The intervention, a 2.5-hour pre-departure training and an accompanying paper handbook, has no effect on employment, settlement, and subjective wellbeing, but leads immigrants to acquire substantially fewer social network connections. We rationalize these findings with a simple model, showing that information and social network links are sub…
Correcting Misperceptions about Support for Social Distancing to Combat Covid-19
the perceived benefits from social distancing. We estimate impacts on social distancing, measured using a combination of self-reports and reports of others. While experts surveyed in advance expected the treatment to increase social distancing, we find that its average effect is close to zero and significantly lower than expert predictions. However, the treatment's effect is heterogeneous, as predicted by theory: it decreases social distancing wh…
Field and Natural Experiments in Migration
Many research and policy questions surrounding migration are causal questions. What causes people to migrate What are the consequences of migration for the migrants, their families, and their communities Answering these questions requires dealing with the self-selection inherent in migration choices. Field and natural experiments offer methodological approaches that enable answering these causal questions. This paper discusses the key conceptual …
Teaching and incentives: Substitutes or complements
Aspirations and financial decisions: Experimental evidence from the Philippines
Measuring remittances
Knowledge, stigma, and HIV testing: An analysis of a widespread HIV/Aids program
Financial education for female foreign domestic workers in Singapore
We evaluate a randomized field experiment to study the effect of financial workshops for domestic workers in Singapore. Groups of women met monthly with a trained mentor. Take-up rates were low and our results are inconclusive as to whether invitations to these workshops improved financial knowledge and behavior. Unexpectedly, treatment assignment had a significant, negative effect on self-reported savings. Further exploration suggests that assig…
Financial Education and Financial Access for Transnational Households: Field Experimental Evidence from the Philippines
We implemented a randomized controlled trial among transnational households in the Philippines estimating impacts on financial behaviors of a financial education treatment, a financial access treatment, and the combination of the two. We test whether there are complementarities between both interventions and provide insight into the nature of constraints operating in financial services markets. We find no evidence of complementarities between the…
Facilitating Worker Mobility: A Randomized Information Intervention among Migrant Workers in Singapore
International migrant workers often face high job search costs and imperfect information on their legal rights to change employers. Such information constraints can undermine the economic benefits from international migration by tying migrant workers to their current employers, leading them to accept less favorable employment terms. We ran a randomized experiment on the impact of facilitating worker mobility via an information intervention among …
Revising Commitments: Field Evidence on the Adjustment of Prior Choices
We implement an artefactual field experiment in rural Malawi to study revisions of prior choices regarding future income receipts. This allows examination of intertemporal choice revision and its determinants. New tests provide evidence of self‐control problems for some participants. Revisions of money allocations towards the present are positively associated with refined measures of present‐bias from an earlier survey and with the randomly assig…
Savings defaults and payment delays for cash transfers: Field experimental evidence from Malawi
Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines
Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines
Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. We conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. Our most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on international…
Facilitating Savings for Agriculture: Field Experimental Evidence from Malawi
We implemented a randomized intervention among Malawian farmers aimed at facilitating formal savings for agricultural inputs. Treated farmers were offered the opportunity to have their cash crop harvest proceeds deposited directly into new bank accounts in their own names, while farmers in the control group were paid harvest proceeds in cash (the status quo). The treatment led to higher savings in the months immediately before the next agricultur…
International Migration and Remittances
Savings in Transnational Households: A Field Experiment among Migrants from El Salvador
We implemented a randomized field experiment that tested ways to stimulate migrants’ savings in their origin country. We find that migrants value opportunities to exert greater control over financial activities in their home countries. We offered U.S.-based migrants bank accounts in El Salvador, randomly varying migrant control over El Salvador–based savings by offering different accounts across treatments. Migrants offered the greatest degree of…
Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration
International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skill…
Subsidies and the Persistence of Technology Adoption: Field Experimental Evidence from Mozambique
We report the results of a randomized experiment testing impacts of subsidies for modern agricultural inputs in rural Mozambique. One-time provision of a voucher for fertilizer and improved seeds leads to substantial increases in fertilizer use, which persist through two subsequent agricultural seasons. Voucher receipt also leads to large, persistent increases in household agricultural production and market sales, per capita consumption, assets, …
Motivating migrants: A field experiment on financial decision-making in transnational households
Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines
Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. The authors conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. The most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on inte…
Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market: Evidence from Filipino Migration and Wage Responses to Destination Country Economic Shocks
The authors use an original panel dataset of migrant departures from the Philippines to identify the responsiveness of migrant numbers and wages to gross domestic product shocks in destination countries. They find a large significant elasticity of migrant numbers to gross domestic product shocks at destination, but no significant wage response. This is consistent with binding minimum wages for migrant labor. This result implies that labor market …
Migrant Remittances
This article is about the economics of migrant remittances sent to developing countries. I review the overall magnitude of remittances and what current research reveals about the motivations for migrant remittances and what effects they have. I discuss field experimental evidence on migrant desires for control over the uses of their remittances. I highlight some key distinctive characteristics of remittances-such as their high frequency and relat…
Experimental Approaches In Migration Studies
The decision of whether or not to migrate has far-reaching consequences for the lives of individuals and their families. But the very nature of this choice makes identifying the impacts of migration difficult, since it is hard to measure a credible counterfactual of what the person and their household would have been doing had migration not occurred. Migration experiments provide a clear and credible way for identifying this counterfactual, and t…
Exporting and Firm Performance: Chinese Exporters and the Asian Financial Crisis
We ask how export demand shocks associated with the Asian financial crisis affected Chinese exporters. We construct firm-specific exchange rate shocks based on the precrisis destinations of firms' exports. Because the shocks were unanticipated and large, they are a plausible instrument for identifying the impact of exporting on firm productivity and other outcomes. We find that firms whose export destinations experience greater currency depreciat…
International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks
Millions of households in developing countries receive financial support from family members working overseas. How do migrant earnings affect origin-household investments? This paper examines Philippine households%u2019 responses to overseas members%u2019 economic shocks. Overseas Filipinos work in dozens of foreign countries, which experienced sudden (and heterogeneous) changes in exchange rates due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Appreciati…
Insurance, credit, and technology adoption: Field experimental evidencefrom Malawi
Migrant Remittances
This article is about the economics of migrant remittances sent to developing countries. I review the overall magnitude of remittances and what current research reveals about the motivations for migrant remittances and what effects they have. I discuss field experimental evidence on migrant desires for control over the uses of their remittances. I highlight some key distinctive characteristics of remittances-such as their high frequency and relat…
Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines
Facilitating Savings for Agriculture: Field Experimental Evidence from Malawi
We implemented a randomized intervention among Malawian farmers aimed at facilitating formal savings for agricultural inputs. Treated farmers were offered the opportunity to have their cash crop harvest proceeds deposited directly into new bank accounts in their own names, while farmers in the control group were paid harvest proceeds in cash (the status quo). The treatment led to higher savings in the months immediately before the next agricultur…
Revising Commitments: Field Evidence on the Adjustment of Prior Choices
We implement an artefactual field experiment in rural Malawi to study revisions of prior choices regarding future income receipts. This allows examination of intertemporal choice revision and its determinants. New tests provide evidence of self‐control problems for some participants. Revisions of money allocations towards the present are positively associated with refined measures of present‐bias from an earlier survey and with the randomly assig…
Motivating migrants: A field experiment on financial decision-making in transnational households
Aspirations and financial decisions: Experimental evidence from the Philippines
Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines
Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. We conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. Our most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on international…
Measuring remittances
Risk, Migration, and Rural Financial Markets: Evidence from Earthquakes in El Salvador
Dean Yang Risk, Migration, and Rural Financial Markets: Evidence from Earthquakes in El Salvador TWO FACTS MOTIVATE THIS STUDY.1 FIRST, LIFE IN RURAL AREAS IN developing countries is prone to m any kinds of risk, such as illness or the m ortality of household members, crop or other income loss due to natural disasters (weather, insect infestations, or fire, for example), and civil conflict. Second, international m igration is substantial and grow…
Knowledge, stigma, and HIV testing: An analysis of a widespread HIV/Aids program
Financial Education and Financial Access for Transnational Households: Field Experimental Evidence from the Philippines
We implemented a randomized controlled trial among transnational households in the Philippines estimating impacts on financial behaviors of a financial education treatment, a financial access treatment, and the combination of the two. We test whether there are complementarities between both interventions and provide insight into the nature of constraints operating in financial services markets. We find no evidence of complementarities between the…
Savings defaults and payment delays for cash transfers: Field experimental evidence from Malawi
International Migration, Human Capital, and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Philippine Migrants' Exchange Rate Shocks
"Millions of households in developing countries receive financial support from family members working overseas. How do the economic prospects of overseas migrants affect origin-household investments-in particular, in child human capital and household enterprises? Yang examines Philippine households' responses to overseas members' economic shocks. Overseas Filipinos work in dozens of foreign countries which experienced sudden (and heterogeneous) c…
Why Do Migrants Return to Poor Countries? Evidence from Philippine Migrants' Responses to Exchange Rate Shocks
Why would migrant workers in rich countries ever return to poorer countries of origin? In a model of migration and household investment, with borrowing constraints and minimum investment thresholds, return migration occurs for either target-earnings or life-cycle reasons. This paper exploits a unique quasi-experiment to distinguish between these potential explanations for return migration. I examine how the return decisions of Philippine migrants…
Are Remittances Insurance?
A basic theoretical result is that if there is a Pareto-efficient allocation of risk across individual entities (in this case, individual household members) in a risk-sharing arrangement, individual consumption should not be affected by idiosyncratic income shocks. Data and Sample Construction The empirical analysis uses data from linked household surveys conducted by the Philippine National Statistics Office covering a nationally representative …
Are Remittances Insurance? Evidence from Rainfall Shocks in the Philippines
Do remittances sent by overseas migrants serve as insurance for recipient households? In a study of how remittances from overseas respond to income shocks experienced by Philippine households, changes in income are found to lead to changes in remittances in the opposite direction, consistent with an insurance motivation. Roughly 60 percent of declines in household income are replaced by remittance inflows from overseas. Because household income a…
Can Enforcement Backfire? Crime Displacement in the Context of Customs Reform in the Philippines
Increased enforcement can lead crime to be displaced to alternative lawbreaking methods. In theory, crime displacement should respond positively to the size of profits threatened by enforcement. If enforcement displaces crime towards lawbreaking methods with lower variable costs, the overall crime rate need not fall. This paper examines a customs reform in the Philippines that raised enforcement against a specific method of avoiding import duties…
Insurance, credit, and technology adoption: Field experimental evidencefrom Malawi
International Migration, Remittances and Household Investment: Evidence from Philippine Migrants’ Exchange Rate Shocks
Millions of households in developing countries receive financial support from family members working overseas. How do migrant earnings affect origin-household investments? This paper examines Philippine households%u2019 responses to overseas members%u2019 economic shocks. Overseas Filipinos work in dozens of foreign countries, which experienced sudden (and heterogeneous) changes in exchange rates due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Appreciati…
Risk, Migration, and Rural Financial Markets: Evidence from Earthquakes in El Salvador
Dean Yang Risk, Migration, and Rural Financial Markets: Evidence from Earthquakes in El Salvador TWO FACTS MOTIVATE THIS STUDY.1 FIRST, LIFE IN RURAL AREAS IN developing countries is prone to m any kinds of risk, such as illness or the m ortality of household members, crop or other income loss due to natural disasters (weather, insect infestations, or fire, for example), and civil conflict. Second, international m igration is substantial and grow…
Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall
We examine the effect of early-life rainfall on the health, education, and socioeconomic outcomes of Indonesian adults. We link historical rainfall for each individual's birth year and birth location with adult outcomes from the 2000 Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS). Higher early-life rainfall has large positive effects on the adult outcomes of women, but not of men. Women with 20 percent higher rainfall (relative to the local norm) are 0.57 c…
Experimental Approaches In Migration Studies
The decision of whether or not to migrate has far-reaching consequences for the lives of individuals and their families. But the very nature of this choice makes identifying the impacts of migration difficult, since it is hard to measure a credible counterfactual of what the person and their household would have been doing had migration not occurred. Migration experiments provide a clear and credible way for identifying this counterfactual, and t…
Exporting and Firm Performance: Chinese Exporters and the Asian Financial Crisis
We ask how export demand shocks associated with the Asian financial crisis affected Chinese exporters. We construct firm-specific exchange rate shocks based on the precrisis destinations of firms' exports. Because the shocks were unanticipated and large, they are a plausible instrument for identifying the impact of exporting on firm productivity and other outcomes. We find that firms whose export destinations experience greater currency depreciat…
Migrant Remittances
This article is about the economics of migrant remittances sent to developing countries. I review the overall magnitude of remittances and what current research reveals about the motivations for migrant remittances and what effects they have. I discuss field experimental evidence on migrant desires for control over the uses of their remittances. I highlight some key distinctive characteristics of remittances-such as their high frequency and relat…
Distortions in the International Migrant Labor Market: Evidence from Filipino Migration and Wage Responses to Destination Country Economic Shocks
The authors use an original panel dataset of migrant departures from the Philippines to identify the responsiveness of migrant numbers and wages to gross domestic product shocks in destination countries. They find a large significant elasticity of migrant numbers to gross domestic product shocks at destination, but no significant wage response. This is consistent with binding minimum wages for migrant labor. This result implies that labor market …
Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines
Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. The authors conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. The most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on inte…
Evidence on Policies to Increase the Development Impacts of International Migration
International migration offers individuals and their families the potential to experience immediate and large gains in their incomes, and offers a large number of other positive benefits to the sending communities and countries. However, there are also concerns about potential costs of migration, including concerns about trafficking and human rights, a desire for remittances to be used more effectively, and concerns about externalities from skill…
Subsidies and the Persistence of Technology Adoption: Field Experimental Evidence from Mozambique
We report the results of a randomized experiment testing impacts of subsidies for modern agricultural inputs in rural Mozambique. One-time provision of a voucher for fertilizer and improved seeds leads to substantial increases in fertilizer use, which persist through two subsequent agricultural seasons. Voucher receipt also leads to large, persistent increases in household agricultural production and market sales, per capita consumption, assets, …
Motivating migrants: A field experiment on financial decision-making in transnational households
International Migration and Remittances
Savings in Transnational Households: A Field Experiment among Migrants from El Salvador
We implemented a randomized field experiment that tested ways to stimulate migrants’ savings in their origin country. We find that migrants value opportunities to exert greater control over financial activities in their home countries. We offered U.S.-based migrants bank accounts in El Salvador, randomly varying migrant control over El Salvador–based savings by offering different accounts across treatments. Migrants offered the greatest degree of…
Unilateral Facilitation Does Not Raise International Labor Migration from the Philippines
Significant income gains from migrating from poorer to richer countries have motivated unilateral (source-country) policies facilitating labor emigration. However, their effectiveness is unknown. We conducted a large-scale randomized experiment in the Philippines testing the impact of unilaterally facilitating international labor migration. Our most intensive treatment doubled the rate of job offers but had no identifiable effect on international…
Facilitating Savings for Agriculture: Field Experimental Evidence from Malawi
We implemented a randomized intervention among Malawian farmers aimed at facilitating formal savings for agricultural inputs. Treated farmers were offered the opportunity to have their cash crop harvest proceeds deposited directly into new bank accounts in their own names, while farmers in the control group were paid harvest proceeds in cash (the status quo). The treatment led to higher savings in the months immediately before the next agricultur…
Savings defaults and payment delays for cash transfers: Field experimental evidence from Malawi
Temptation in vote-selling: Evidence from a field experiment in the Philippines
Revising Commitments: Field Evidence on the Adjustment of Prior Choices
We implement an artefactual field experiment in rural Malawi to study revisions of prior choices regarding future income receipts. This allows examination of intertemporal choice revision and its determinants. New tests provide evidence of self‐control problems for some participants. Revisions of money allocations towards the present are positively associated with refined measures of present‐bias from an earlier survey and with the randomly assig…
Facilitating Worker Mobility: A Randomized Information Intervention among Migrant Workers in Singapore
International migrant workers often face high job search costs and imperfect information on their legal rights to change employers. Such information constraints can undermine the economic benefits from international migration by tying migrant workers to their current employers, leading them to accept less favorable employment terms. We ran a randomized experiment on the impact of facilitating worker mobility via an information intervention among …
Economics (28 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (17 works) · Business (13 works) · Demographic economics (12 works) · Finance (12 works) · Economic growth (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Geography (10 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (9 works) · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy (8 works)