Collaborative Research: Marriage Market Effects of Strengthening Female Inheritance Rights

This award funds a research project that tests an economic theory about the unintended consequences of public policy. Policies that aim to increase female economic empowerment can improve their economic inclusion, bargaining power in the home, and psychological well-being. However, these policies can have unintended consequences, with parents reallocating resources away from daughters’ education, dowry, and lower quality marital spouses. This research project will study the effect of a new system of land records that digitizes and centralizes records on female land inheritance, human capital, and marriage outcomes. The researchers will study the overall welfare effects of strengthening women’s’ inheritance and other investments, including education. This research contributes to knowledge by considering the full extent of household decision-making by linking inheritance decisions as closely tied to the other human capital investments. The results of this research will provide inputs into policies to improve women’s inheritance rights around the world. The results will also provide guidance on how to craft more efficient policies that will minimize their unintended consequences. This award funds a research project that studies the unintended consequences of policy reforms. The project exploits the staggered implementation of digitizing land records as well as the timing of household head deaths among agricultural landowning landlords to answer three questions: (i) whether the intervention works as it was intended, (ii) what are the direct impacts of the reform on education and marriage outcomes for women who receive inherited land, and (iii) what are the effects of the reform on resource allocation within landowning households who have not directly experienced an inheritance but may respond to the reform in anticipation of future inheritances. Data collection is through a phone survey. The research results will help policy makers craft better land reform policies that reduces the unintended consequences of the reform; the lessons can also be applied to other policies. The results of this research will also help establish the US a global leader in women’s rights. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.