Dowry Deaths: Consumption Smoothing in Response to Climate Variability in India

Sheetal Sekhri and Adam Storeygard

Virginia Economics Online Papers from University of Virginia, Department of Economics

Abstract: We examine the e ect of rainfall shocks on crimes against women using data from 583 Indian districts for 2002-2007. We nd that a one standard deviation decline in annual rainfall from the local mean increases reported domestic violence by 4.4 percent and dowry deaths by 7.8 percent. Wet shocks have no apparent e ect. These patterns are consistent with consumption smoothing by households relying on agriculture, but inconsistent with hypotheses emphasizing general unrest. Women's political representation in the national parliament has no apparent mitigating e ect.

Keywords: Dowry Deaths; Consumption Smoothing; Climate Shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O10 O13 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2013-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dem and nep-env
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Dowry deaths: Response to weather variability in India (2014)
Working Paper: Dowry Deaths:Response to Weather Variability in India (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vir:virpap:407

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