Gendered Demand for Environmental Health : Evidence of Complementarities from Stove Auctions in India

We study if prior exposure to one environmental health technology - improved sanitation - complements or substitutes for additional household investments in another such technology -- an electric induction cookstove. A cookstove demand revealing auction took place over a decade after a random half of our sample had been exposed to an intensive behavior change campaign to promote sanitation in rural India. We observe that demand for induction cookstoves among men seems to be affected by learning from the sanitation intervention, whereas, demand by women is unchanged. These results suggest the importance of interactions between bargaining power, information and knowledge, and preferences