ONLINE APPENDIX Asymmetric Information and Remittances: Evidence from Matched Administrative Data

where the migrant’s consumption, cm, depends on w, the migrant’s earnings in the host country, less r, the amount remitted to the household at home. The altruism weight attached to the household at home is given by ah. Consumption of the household at home is given by ch = c(y + r) where y is the earnings of household members at home. A migrant chooses a level of r to maximize his utility, and two predictions result: ∂r/∂w > 0 and ∂r/∂y < 0. Given our data, one testable implication of the model of altruism is that remittances should rise and fall with the earnings of the migrant.1 Under a model of pure altruism, remittances should move with income regardless of whether income is observable by others or not.