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.

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. (Submitted)