The Price of Gold: Dowry and Death in India

Selim Gulesci, Sonia Bhalotra and Abhishek Chakravarty

No 12712, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 J16 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The price of gold: Dowry and death in India (2020)
Working Paper: The Price of Gold: Dowry and Death in India (2016)
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