We examine how mehr, a conditional payment from husbands to wives in the event of divorce, and dowry, a transfer from bride families to grooms at the time of marriage, have evolved through natural shocks. We develop a model of marriage market in which dowry acts as a groom price, whereas mehr...

We examine the impact of legislated land ceiling size on capital investment and industrialisation in the Indian states. India's land ceiling legislations of 1960s and 1970s imposed a ceiling on maximum land holdings and redistributed above-ceiling lands. These ceiling legislations, effectively...

We develop a tractable model of competition among motivated MFIs. We find that equilibria may or may not involve double-dipping (and consequently default), with there being double-dipping whenever the MFIs are very profit-oriented. Moreover, in an equilibrium with double-dipping, borrowers who...

We develop a tractable model of competition among socially motivated MFIs, so that the objective functions of the MFIs put some weight on their own clients' utility. We nd that the equilibrium involves double-dipping, i.e. borrowers taking multiple loans from different MFIs, whenever the MFIs...

We examine how increased competition among motivated MFIs impacts the poorest borrowers’ access to microfinance. We find that it depends on inequality, technology and the possibility of double-dipping (borrowing from several sources). Without competition, even a motivated MFI may lend to the...