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Is There Dowry Inflation in South Asia?

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Author Info
Raj Arunachalam
Trevon Logan

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Abstract

This paper is the first systematic attempt to measure the existence and degree of dowry inflation in South Asia. The popular press and scholarly literature have assumed dowry inflation in South Asia for some time, and there are now a number of theoretical papers that have attempted to explain the rise of dowries in South Asia. Despite these advances, there has been no systematic study of dowry inflation. Using large-sample retrospective survey data from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal, we assess the empirical evidence for dowry infllation. We find no evidence that real dowry amounts have systematically increased over time in South Asia.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13905.

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Date of creation: Mar 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13905

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: General
D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
O10 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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  1. Neelakantan, Urvi & Tertilt, Michèle, 2008. "A note on marriage market clearing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 103-105, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Rao, Vijayendra, 1993. "The Rising Price of Husbands: A Hedonic Analysis of Dowry Increases in Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 666-77, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2007. "The Economic Lives of the Poor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 141-168, Winter.
    Other versions:
  4. Raj Arunachalam & Trevon D. Logan, 2006. "On the Heterogeneity of Dowry Motives," NBER Working Papers 12630, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Deolalikar, A.B. & Rao, V., 1990. "The Demand For Bride Characteristics And Dowry In Mariage: Empirical Estimates For Rural South India," Working Papers 90-22, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
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  6. Dalmia, Sonia, 2004. "A hedonic analysis of marriage transactions in India: estimating determinants of dowries and demand for groom characteristics in marriage," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 235-255, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Anderson, Siwan, 2007. "Why the marriage squeeze cannot cause dowry inflation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 140-152, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Lena Edlund, 2000. "The Marriage Squeeze Interpretation of Dowry Inflation: A Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(6), pages 1327-1333, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Lena Edlund, 2006. "The Price of Marriage: Net vs. Gross Flows and the South Asian Dowry Debate," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(2-3), pages 542-551, 04-05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Siwan Anderson, 2007. "The Economics of Dowry and Brideprice," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(4), pages 151-174, Fall.
  11. Sudeshna Maitra, 2006. "Can Population Growth Cause Dowry Inflation? Theory and the Indian Evidence," Working Papers 2006_10, York University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  12. Siwan Anderson, 2003. "Why Dowry Payments Declined with Modernization in Europe but Are Rising in India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(2), pages 269-310, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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