Patriarchal Investments: Marriage, Dowry and Economic Change in Rural Bangladesh

‘Arranged’ Marriage, Dowry and Female Literacy in a Transitional Society

We examine the consequences of parental control over choice of wives for sons, for parental incentives to educate daughters, in a dualistic transitional economy, where preferences conflict across generations and the marriage market exhibits competitive dowry payments. Parental control generates persistence of low levels of female literacy, despite economic growth. In steady state equilibrium, t...

Intergenerational Economic Mobility in Rural Bangladesh

The Economics of Brideprice and Dowry: A Marriage Market Analysis

Marriages in traditional societies often include a transfer between the involved parties. In some societies, a transfer is made from the groom to the family of the bride (a brideprice), while in others it goes from the bride to the groom (a dowry). This paper investigates whether differences in the type of marriages that are allowed can account for these observations. I present an overlapping g...

'Arranged' Marriage, Education, and Dowry: A Contract-Theoretic Perspective

This paper propounds a contract-theoretic model where dowry acts as a screening device to differentiate grooms of varying qualities. In 'arranged' marriage settings that are characterized by incomplete information in the sense that the true quality of the groom remains unobservable to the bride, and in the presence of observable traits like education that are easier for the better quality groom...

Reforming marriage practices in Bangladesh

arriage customs in Bangladesh vary by region, complicating national-level efforts to eliminate some of the more harmful practices, such as early marriage and dowry demands, that undermine the status of women. Efforts to reform such a complex and multidimensional institution as marriage must consider economic concerns, social traditions, and social activism. Dowry demands—in addition to exacting...