Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development?

Matthias Doepke and Michele Tertilt

No 2014-002, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: Empirical evidence suggests that money in the hands of mothers (as opposed to fathers) increases expenditures on children. From this, should we infer that targeting transfers to women is good economic policy? In this paper, we develop a non-cooperative model of household decision making to answer this question. We show that when women have lower wages than men, they may spend more on children, even when they have exactly the same preferences as their husbands. However, this does not necessarily mean that giving money to women is a good development policy. We show that depending on the nature of the production function, targeting transfers to women may be beneficial or harmful to growth. In particular, such transfers are more likely to be beneficial when human capital, rather than physical capital or land, is the most important factor of production.

Keywords: Female Empowerment; Gender Equality; Economic Development; Theory of the Household; Marital Bargaining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-gro
Note: M
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

Downloads: (external link)
http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Doepke ... s-female-empower.pdf First version, 1/30/2014 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Does female empowerment promote economic development? (2019)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development? (2019)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development (2014)
Working Paper: Does female empowerment promote economic development? (2014)
Working Paper: Does female empowerment promote economic development? (2014)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development? (2014)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development? (2011)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development? (2011)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development? (2010)
Working Paper: Does Female Empowerment Promote Economic Development? (2010)
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