This paper examines how traditional marriage market institutions affect households' financial decisions. We study how … bride-to-groom marriage payments, i.e., dowries, influence saving behavior in rural India. Exploiting variation in firstborn … gender and heterogeneity in dowry amounts across marriage markets, we find that the prospect of paying higher dowry increases …

The ancient custom of dowry, that is, bride-to-groom marriage payments, remains ubiquitous in many contemporary … 1986-2007. Utilizing variation in firstborn gender and dowry amounts across marriage markets, the paper finds that the … prospect of higher dowry payments at the time of a daughter's marriage leads parents to save more in advance. The higher …