The Perceived Discrimination and Remittances: Evidence from Immigrants in Northern Italy

Despite the fact that immigrants' experienced discrimination can imply higher economic and psychological migration costs, little research has explicitly focused on its role as remitting device. Using the 2012-2013 waves of an original survey documenting transnational economic immigrants in Northern Italy, this paper quanties the relationship between perceived economic discrimination and amount remitted (intensive margin), conditional on remitting at all (extensive margin). Empirical results show that, beside traditional individual characteristics, a more discriminating destination environment leads to lower amount of remittances but only for women. The e ect mainly goes through female immigrants' labor market conditions and only slightly through the willingness to leave Lombardy.