Dowries in Bangladesh

On the Heterogeneity of Dowry Motives
Raj Arunachalamy and Trevon D. Loganz

Dowries have been modeled as pre-mortem bequests to daughters or as groom-
prices paid to in-laws. These two classes of models yield mutually exclusive
predictions, but empirical tests of these predictions have been mixed. We draw
from historical evidence that suggests a bifurcated marriage market, in which
some households use dowries as a bequest and others use dowries as a price.
The competing theories of dowry allow us to structure an exogenous switching
regression that places households in the price or bequest regime. The empirical
strategy allows for multiple checks on the validity of regime assignment. Using
retrospective marriage data from rural Bangladesh, we nd evidence of het-
erogeneity in dowry motives; that bequest dowries have declined in prevalence
and amount over time; and that bequest households are better o compared to
price households on a variety of welfare measures.

The full paper is here.