This paper develops a new methodology to analyze how parents in Rajasthan, India make choices about their daughters' schooling and marriage. We specify a dynamic discrete choice model in which parents face uncertainty about the quality of their daughter's future marriage offers. Parents' choices...

Striking gender gaps persist in fundamental aspects of human welfare. In India, the setting of this paper, these gaps are particularly large. Interventions often target adolescent girls with the aim of empowering them to make choices that go against the status quo - to remain in school longer or...

Indian girls have significantly lower school enrollment rates than boys. Anecdotal evidence suggests that gender-differential treatment is the main explanation, but empirical support is often weak. I analyze school enrollment using rainfall shocks, a plausibly exogenous source of income...

Son preference in countries like India results in higher female infant mortality rates and differentially lower access to health care and education for girls than for boys. We use a nationally representative survey of Indian households (NFHS-3) to conduct the first study that analyzes whether...

"Since the early 1990s, several states in India have introduced financial incentive programs to discourage son preference among parents and encourage investment in daughters' education and health. This study evaluates one such program in the state of Haryana, Apni Beti Apna Dhan (Our Daughter,...

The paper studies the impact of prenatal sex selection on the well-being of girls by analyzing changes in children’s nutritional status and mortality during the years since the diffusion of prenatal sex determination technologies in India. We use the ratio of male to female births in the year...

Introduction -- Background on population sex ratio -- Conceptual framework -- Research methods -- Characteristics associated with male birth proportion -- The effect of prenatal sex selection on mortality -- The effect of prenatal sex selection on health care and morbidity -- Discussion and...