Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP12712
Authors: Sonia Bhalotra; Abhishek Chakravarty; Selim Gulesci
Abstract: We provide evidence that dowry costs motivate son-preferring behaviors in India. Since gold is an integral part of dowry, we study parental responses to shocks in the world gold price. Exploiting monthly variation in gold prices across 35 years, as well as an event study around a massive gold price hike in December 1979, we find that monthly changes in gold prices lead to an increase in girl relative to boy neonatal mortality and that the surviving girls are shorter. After the introduction of prenatal sex determination technology, we find that gold price shocks increase female foeticide.
Keywords: dowry; gold price; son preference; missing girls; neonatal mortality; commodity price shocks
JEL Codes: I14; J16; O12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| gold price shocks (E39) | girl neonatal mortality increase (J13) |
| gold price shocks (E39) | boy neonatal mortality decrease (J13) |
| gold price shocks (E39) | increase in female foeticide (J16) |
| gold price shocks (E39) | women shorter in adulthood (J19) |
| gold price shocks (E39) | changes in parental investment behaviors (J13) |