We develop a non-cooperative bargaining model with incomplete information linking dowry payments, domestic violence, resource allocation between a husband and a wife, and separation. Our model generates several predictions, which we test empirically using amendments to the Indian anti-dowry law as a natural experiment. (Accepted at Review of Economics and Statistics)

We study the relationship between dowries, wealth transfers from the bride’s family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage, and individual-level poverty in rural India, (Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Vol. 192, pp. 268-303)

I estimate preferences for height in the Indian marriage market and study how marital matching and sorting on height impacts children’s height distribution.