the dreaded embankment paper
TRANSCRIPT
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Marriage Market Effects of a Wealth Shock in Bangladesh
A. Mushfiq Mobarak*Yale University
Randall Kuhn
University of Denver
Christina PetersMetro State College of Denver
AbstractConditions of marriage such as dowries and consanguinity influence women’s subsequent lifeoutcomes. However, research on the determinants of these conditions is largely descriptive. Thispaper uses a wealth shock from the construction of a flood protection embankment in ruralBangladesh coupled with data on the universe of all 52,000 marriage decisions between 1982 and1996 to examine changes in marital prospects for protected households after embankmentconstruction relative to unprotected households living on the other side of the river. First we usetwo-sided matching models with difference-in-difference specifications to describe the changes inthe marriage market, and show that protected households commanded larger dowries, marriedinto wealthier families, and became less likely to marry biological relatives. The marriage market
becomes more segregated by wealth, but the positive wealth shock does not allow women todelay marriage or reduce spousal age gaps. The same family is 40% less likely to marry ayounger child to a cousin after the wealth shock, compared to their older child who married priorto the embankment construction. Second, we try to understand the structural changes that led tothis drop in consanguinity, and find that liquidity-constrained households use within-familymarriage (where one can promise ex-post payments) as a form of credit to meet up-front dowrydemands, and the wealth shock relaxed this need for taking an adverse biological risk.
JEL Codes : O1, J12, O13Keywords : Marriage, Embankment, Flood Protection, Consanguinity
November, 2009
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1. Introduction
Across the world, a woman’s marital prospects have important implications for
her subsequent life outcomes. Characteristics of the bride and her family at the time of
marriage in conjunction with the characteristics of her spouse and his family determine
the conditions of marriage such as dowries, marrying biological relatives, and age at
marriage. 1 These conditions in turn affect socio-economic outcomes for the woman and
her children, including the likelihood that she will have to endure domestic violence, her
social status in her husband’s home, her school attainment, health status, and her control
over reproductive choices. 2 Marrying a cousin or uncle, a surprisingly common practice
around the developing world, can decrease the amount of dowry required, but increases
the risk of genetic diseases among offspring. 3
Although the literature on the consequences of marriage is large, the evidence on
the determinants of the conditions of spousal matching is mostly qualitative or descriptive
(e.g. Fruzzetti, 1982; Huq and Amin, 2001). A few studies account for multiple co-
varying determinants of marital prospects, and use cross-sectional regressions on
relatively small samples of survey data from rural India to show that older, taller, more
educated grooms of high caste living in areas with a larger supply of potential brides
command larger dowries, and that spouses mate assortatively in age and education. 4 The
fact that families can offer compensating differentials along many unobservable
dimensions in order to secure a desirable match is a significant challenge to empirically
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identifying the precise determinants of marriage outcomes in these studies. We exploit
the construction of a flood protection embankment in rural Bangladesh coupled with pre
and post embankment data on 33,000 marriages in treatment and control villages to
examine how a plausibly exogenous change in certain households’ wealth manifests itself
in marriage market outcomes such as dowries, socio-economic status of the spouse, age
at marriage, and consanguinity (i.e. marrying biological relatives).
The flood protection embankment in rural Bangladesh that we study induced a
discrete improvement in socio-economic conditions for families living on the
embankment side of the river relative to the opposite bank that remained unprotected.
The major effect of the embankment was to extend the crop growing season, thereby
increasing relative wealth for households on the protected side, though it also may have
reduced flood risk exposure. We investigate differential changes in the conditions of
marriage for protected households using panel data on the entire universe of marriages
across a fourteen-year pre and post-embankment period.
Our paper is constructed in two parts. The first part uses stylized two-sided
matching models of the marriage market along with difference-in-difference
specifications to describe changes in the marriage market following the wealth shock, and
documents changes in dowries, spousal socio-economic status, and a drop in marriages
between biological relatives. In the second part, we explore structural changes that led to
this drop in consanguinity. We find that liquidity-constrained households facing dowry
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For the first part, the model predicts that the protected are likely to secure better
matches only along characteristics that are complementary. For example, if the wealth
that a man and woman bring in to a marriage are complementary inputs in generating
marital surplus, then the protected would in general choose to (and be able to) marry into
wealthier households. If age at marriage is not a complementary input, protection will
not necessarily change spousal age or age gaps, since the protected are not willing to pay
relatively more than the unprotected for this characteristic. 5 Furthermore, if the
embankment’s primary contribution is to lower flood risk exposure, then we should
observe negative assortative matching in protection post-embankment. The unprotected
have the largest marginal gain from bonding with a protected family, and are therefore
willing to pay the most to secure that match. A corollary is that the protected should
receive larger dowries.
Difference-in-difference specifications that explore changes in marriages post-
embankment show that individuals from protected households experienced a 3 percent
higher likelihood of marrying into wealthier households (as measured by land ownership)
post embankment relative to those that remained unprotected. The embankment had a
larger wealth effect on farmers, and triple difference (pre/post, un/protected, by
occupation) results confirm that agricultural households drive this change. Protected men
command larger dowries following embankment construction, but there are no significant
changes in age at marriage. We also do not find evidence of assortative matching in
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becomes increasingly segregated (beneficiaries of the environmental shock command
larger dowries, marry wealthy families and crowd out others). Norms regarding the
proper age at marriage and spousal age gaps appear quite inelastic even for those who
receive the large positive shock to wealth. This first part of the paper documents general
equilibrium effects of an infrastructure commonly constructed in flood-exposed
developing countries.
The second part of the paper turns to changes in consanguinity – the practice of
marrying biological relatives – which is surprisingly common in many parts of
Bangladesh, in neighboring India and Pakistan, and more generally in the developing
countries of Asia and Africa. 6 Such marriages impose adverse biological risk on children
in the increased likelihood of receiving two copies of a deleterious gene from parents,
which manifests itself in larger child morbidity and mortality rates (Bittles and Makov,
1988; Bittles, 2001; Shah et al., 1998). 7 Social scientists have a limited understanding of
why so many couples accept these risks, and the wealth shock associated with the
embankment provides a unique opportunity to gain further insight into this practice.
In difference-in-difference estimates using household fixed effects, protected
households show a 3.3 percentage point larger drop (a 40 percent decrease at the mean) in
the likelihood of forming consanguineous unions following the construction of the
embankment relative to unprotected households living on the other side of the river.
Multiple mechanisms can link flood protection to consanguinity prevalence, but our
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ancillary evidence indicates that marrying consanguineously reduces the need for dowry
payments which are often difficult for brides from poor families to make, and this dowry
constraint is relaxed for protected households following embankment construction. 8
Since a bride’s parents often do not have either cash on hand or access to credit to make
the up-front dowry payment, they use within-family marriage (where it becomes possible
to promise ex-post payments) as a form of credit. Triple difference results by gender
show that it is protected women who show the larger drop in consanguinity (rather than
protected men), which is consistent with this dowry-credit constraint story, since the
dowry payment is uni-directional from women to men. The contract theory model in Do,
Iyer and Joshi (2009) formalizes this story, and we bring credible evidence to bear on this
mechanism by taking advantage of an exogenous environmental shock.
In the next two sections, we describe our data and present evidence that the
embankment created plausibly exogenous variation in wealth. Section 4 presents two-
sided matching models of the marriage market to explore how this is expected to affect
marriage market behavior. Section 5 empirically describes the changes in the marriage
market, and finally section 6 tries to understand the structural changes that led to the large
drop in consanguinity.
2. Data and Setting
Since 1963, the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
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of residents in 148 villages in Matlab district. Residents of this rural area are mostly poor
and landless, subsisting off fishing, agricultural labor, and sharecropping. The Meghna-
Dhonagoda River runs through the middle of the study area, and the Water and Power
Development Authority in Bangladesh used external donor funds in 1987 to construct a
65 km embankment along the northwest bank that prevents water overflow and provides
systems for pumped drainage and irrigation along the waterway (Strong and Minkin,
1992). The embankment was breached during abnormally high floods in 1987 and 1988,
after which it was strengthened and resealed in 1989. Consequently, in the empirical
specifications, the pre-embankment period becomes 1982-1986, and the post-
embankment period covers 1989-1996.
Using ICDDR,B’s data, we observe all 33,000 marriages (or 52,000 marriage
decisions) of Matlab residents between 1982 and 1996, and we can merge census data
from 1982 to these marriage files. We know the age at marriage of each individual and
their spouse, any biological relationship between them (i.e. consanguinity status), their
wealth, occupation, and location (and therefore embankment protection status). The vital
events database also allows us to examine fertility, mortality and migration patterns at
monthly intervals for the full sample of households over the entire sample period.
We supplement these data with retrospective dowry information, cropping
practices, and land value information reported in the 1996 Matlab Health and
Socioeconomic Survey. The MHSS cross-sectional dataset covers a random sub-sample
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by women who are interviewed separately from their husbands. Appendix table A1 lists
the variables used in this study and their definitions.
3. What the Embankment Construction Helps Identify
The key identifying assumption in our statistical analysis is that the construction
of the Meghna-Dhonogoda embankment induced measurable changes in socio-economic
status for people resident on the northwest side of the Dhonagoda river in Matlab district,
relative to people resident on the other side of that river (see figure 1). Before turning to
any marriage outcomes, in this section we explore: (a) whether the embankment
construction can be treated as exogenous (i.e. uncorrelated with other coincident changes
in events and conditions), and (b) what exactly were the socio-economic changes the
embankment effectuated – changes in wealth or risk exposure – that ultimately resulted in
changes in the marriage market.
The embankment was not designed as a scientifically random experiment. We
thus explore in what ways the event falls short of the ideal of a “natural experiment” or
strictly “exogenous” change. One potential concern is that people resident on the south-
east bank of the river are not an appropriate control group for the “treated” households,
since the placement of the embankment on the northwest bank may itself signal some
pre-existing differences between the two groups.
During fieldwork interviews we conducted in 2006, Matlab residents indicated
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politicians in conjunction with the largest local landowners who actually live in Dhaka
(Briscoe, 1998; Kabir 2004). Neither of those groups are part of our sample since they do
not live in Matlab district. However, this may indicate possibility of other forms of
preferential treatment for the protected side of the river, and we therefore delve into the
program evaluation and anthropological literatures to examine these issues.
It is possible that agriculture practices are systematically different across the two
banks due to drainage differences, although program evaluations of the embankment
project report that the geographic areas experienced similar weather patterns, households
grew similar crops and reported similar incomes, and demographic distributions were
nearly identical. We find no mention of any other significant differences in technology
or other construction such as bridges that may have happened to coincide with
embankment construction (Strong and Minkin, 1992; Thompson and Sultana, 1996;
Briscoe, 1998). 9 Descriptive statistics from our own data show that the protected and
unprotected groups are similar prior to construction along most observable dimensions
(see Table 1). Due to the large sample size, the marriage outcomes of interest are often
statistically different across the two groups prior to completion of the embankment, but
the magnitude of those differences remains very small.
One exception is the baseline consanguinity rate, which is appreciably larger prior
to embankment construction on the protected side. However, since our difference-in-
difference estimates rely on relative changes in marriage outcomes, the most important
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We show that protected and unprotected trends in the marriage outcomes of interest prior
to embankment construction were not statistically different, and the magnitudes of the
differences are very small when compared with the actual embankment effect estimates
we present later (see table 2). In fact, the (statistically insignificant) point estimate shows
that if anything, consanguinity on the embankment side was increasing relative to the
unprotected side (which also means that the relative decrease in consanguinity on the
protected side post embankment construction that we will demonstrate will be
statistically different from both the zero effect and from its pre-existing trend). Any
relative changes in trends post-embankment that our difference-in-difference estimates
uncover are therefore not merely a continuation of pre-existing differences in trends.
We also conduct falsification exercises on our DID estimates (modeled after
Aghion et al. (2008)), which replace the indicator for the actual year of embankment
construction with every possible false embankment year of the sample. In other tests, we
replace the variable for protection status (indicating which side of the embankment a
household is on) with false embankment locations of northern vs. southern villages and
the treatment and control groups of the Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family
Planning Program, an experimental program present in the area. These tests for false
times and locations all show that statistical impacts are absent in cases where we should
not observe them (e.g. there are no statistical differences in behavior across two sub-
periods other than that of embankment construction), and that the actual embankment
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Thus, though the embankment may not be a perfectly clean experiment, we have
searched for possible threats to the embankment as a source of identification. The results
support its use as a plausibly exogenous source of variation in a difference-in-difference
setting across the protected and unprotected banks of the river. It is a useful source of
variation to examine the effects of changes in wealth and risk exposure on marriage
outcomes. Furthermore, the embankment is an infrastructure projects whose effects on
the social and economic lives of the village residents are inherently interesting to
examine. We next explore the relative changes in wealth and risk exposure it induced.
3.1 Impacts of the Embankment on Income and Risk
Frequent flooding in Matlab destroys crops and induces volatility in household
income, and the embankment provides security by extending growing seasons and
increasing overall farm incomes for protected agricultural households. During fieldwork
we conducted in December 2006, Matlab residents often reported that the primary effect
of the embankment was to increase the number of crop cycles from only one per calendar
year to two or three. 11 Consistent with our informal interviews, Matlab data from 1996
indicates that protected rice farmers enjoy almost one extra growing season per calendar
year compared to farmers on the other side of the river (t-test significant at the 1 percent
level). Thompson and Sultana (1996) mention that the largest effects of flood protection
projects should be on monsoon crops, and accordingly, our data shows that protected
farmers grow 2-3 times more Aman and Aus paddy (the two varieties grown during the
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significant at the 5 percent level). Meanwhile, the embankment had no discernible effect
on yields for the dry season Boro paddy.
Protected farmers should have experienced a substantial wealth effect from these
large increases in rice yields. We measure this effect directly by using principal
components analysis to construct asset indices for household wealth in 1982 and 1996
(see table 3).12
Compared to unprotected households, protected households experience a
greater increase (significant at the 1 percent level) in asset ownership between 1982 (pre-
embankment) and 1996 (post-embankment). Moreover, this change is almost entirely
driven by farmers. 13 A hedonic regression of the value of land using cross-sectional 1996
data reveals that post-embankment, the unit price of land is over 3000 taka higher per
decimal on the protected side. 14 Table 4 shows that the variance of assets across
households within a village (which would be linked to changes in risk exposure) does not
differentially change across the protected or unprotected banks. Consistent with the
fieldwork findings, the mean wealth effect of the embankment thus appears to dominate
changes in variance.
In addition to this wealth effect, the embankment also may have reduced the
health risk posed by stagnant floodwaters. Using DID specifications to test the
12 The index measures household ownership of any combination of the following assets: a radio, a watch orclock, a bicycle, cows, and a hurricane lamp. Data is taken from Matlab DSS (Demographic SurveillanceSystem) 1982 and 1996 household censuses. We compare asset indices for only those households withinformation in both years. Occupation of household head is kept as reported in 1982.13 Both landowners and tenant farmer benefited in significant ways which indicates that the extended
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embankment’s effect across different sex-age categories, we find a differentially greater
decline for protected households than unprotected households in mortality rates from
diarrheal diseases and other water-borne infectious diseases. 15 Specifically, adults
protected by the embankment are less likely to die from diarrheal diseases (including all
adults between 30-35, females between 45-50, and males between 55-60), and protected
adult males between 30-35 are less likely to die from infectious diseases.16
In summary, while the embankment may have affected both the mean and
variance of outcomes (wealth and risk exposure), both our fieldwork and the data analysis
are strongly suggestive the wealth effect is likely the most salient change and the
dominant embankment effect for protected Matlab residents. As figure 2a indicates, the
embankment is not a soaring barrier that can protect residents from the gushing
floodwaters that are an enduring risk to life and property periodically faced by rural
Bangladeshis. It is a more modest barrier designed to protect agricultural fields from
seasonal variation in water levels that render those fields in-arable during the monsoons.
The data on cropping cycles, agricultural yields, land values, wealth by occupation all
indicate that the embankment performs this limited function well, and bestows a positive
wealth shock on protected households.
4. Effects of the Embankment in Stylized Models of the Marriage Market
The wealth and risk effects outlined above may each have very different
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help us understand what effects we expect to observe on a variety of marriage outcomes.
Most existing models of the marriage market describe matching functions under the
assumption that each person brings a single trait to marriage (e.g. Browning, Chiappori
and Weiss 2003, Anderson 2007, Weiss 1997), which makes generating predictions on
assortative matching relatively simple (e.g. Bergstrom 1997, Siow 1998, Anderson 2000).
We take the following approach to describe matches in a situation where multiple
attributes of protection can affect outcomes:
1. We derive analytical predictions on matching in a simplified transferable-utility
marriage market where each person has only two discrete attributes –
embankment protection status and wealth status. This model helps clarify the
basic economic intuition behind the dynamics of a more complicated market.
2. We then relax the assumptions on transferable utility, endow each person with
multiple continuous characteristics, and simulate stable matches in a larger
marriage market characterized by search frictions.
4.1 A Transferable Utility Model of the Marriage Market
Since marriages in Matlab are typically arranged by the families of the groom and
bride, we assume that preferences of the bride and her family are grouped together, as are
the preferences of the groom and his family. Males and females on the marriage market
are indexed by m and f . Each potential spouse has two relevant characteristics: the level
of wealth ( w f or wm), which can be either high ( H ) or low ( L), and the embankment status
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assumption (e.g. Weiss 1997, Siow 1998, Anderson 2007) simplifies the matching
problem by allowing each person to use z fm in comparing the gains across different types
of matches and against the payoff from remaining single. d fm regulates the division
between spouses, so that each person’s decision is conveniently split into: (1) choose the
match that maximizes the surplus generated from marriage, and (2) choose a value of d fm
to split that surplus.
The groom’s payoff from the marriage is d fm, while the bride’s payoff is z fm -
d fm.17 We assume the following general form for z fm: ),(),max( m f m f fm wwee z Π⋅= .
This formulation reflects the fact that embankment protection increases the productivity
of land by extending the crop season, which is the principal component of wealth in rural
Bangladesh. The embankment also protects from flood risk, and it is most important to
have at least one side of the newly joined families be protected, an idea embodied in the
max( e f , em) function. 18 A woman may gain from starting to live under embankment
protection after marriage, and conversely, an unprotected groom’s family may gain from
forming a marital bond with a protected family where they can take refuge during a flood.
Variables e f , em (which can take on values P and U ) and w f , wm (with values H or
L) are all assumed to be strictly positive so that greater wealth can be valuable even in the
absence of protection. P>U , H > L, and f
f w∂
Π∂=Π and
mm w∂
Π∂=Π are positive, so that
protection and greater wealth are both positive characteristics in the marriage market.
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Further, we will focus on the case where there are gains to marriage: 0 >Π fm . All
couples with any wealth gain from being married relative to remaining single
when 0>Π fm , and for the unprotected there are additional gains from marrying into a
family protected by the embankment.
Our task is to uncover a stable set of matches for the four types of men and
women in this marriage market, such that no married person would rather be single and
that no two people, married or single, would prefer to form a new union. Stability implies
a participation constraint for each woman which specifies that her payoff from marriage
must be as large as her payoff from remaining single:
)0,(),(),max( f f fmm f m f wed wwee Π⋅≥−Π⋅ . Similarly, the participation constraint for
each man requires ),0( mm fm wed Π⋅≥ . For stable matches, a set of incentive
compatability constraints must also be satisfied for each person that specify that the
payoff from the chosen match is larger than under alternate matches:
mnd wweed wwee fnn f n f fmm f m f ≠∀−Π⋅≥−Π⋅ ,),(),max(),(),max( , and
f gd d gm fm≠∀≥ .
Since there are only four types of each gender, the above represents three
incentive compatibility constraints for women and a further three for men. A final
market clearing condition stipulates that for a match of type f and type m to be feasible in
the aggregate, the supply of these types must be equal.
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possible assignments. 19 It is easy to verify that under complementarity ( 0 >Π fm ), the
only stable set of matches is where type ( P , H ) get matched to type ( U , H ) of the opposite
gender, while ( P , L) and ( U , L) also form bonds. In other words, we observe positive
assortative matching in wealth, but negative assortative matching in protection status.
In order to illustrate why these matches are optimal, it is useful to derive the result
assuming a market structure where the women can bid for the men and are the residual
claimant of the marital surplus generated (the results are analogous when men bid). The
maximum willingness to pay for a ( P , H ) man by each type of woman is as follows:
By a ( P , H ) woman, )0,(),( H P H H PWTP PH PH
Π⋅−Π⋅=
By a ( P , L) woman, )0,(),( LP H LPWTP PH PL
Π⋅−Π⋅=
By a ( U , H ) woman, )0,(),( H U H H PWTP PH UH
Π⋅−Π⋅=
By a ( U , L) woman, )0,(),( LU H LPWTP PH UL
Π⋅−Π⋅=
Since P>U , PH PH
PH UH WTPWTP > and PH
PLPH
UL WTPWTP > . This is because a protected
man offers greater value added to an unprotected woman than he does to a protected
woman, and the unprotected woman will therefore be willing to outbid the protected
woman. Also, PH UL
PH UH WTPWTP > when 0>Π
mf . Under complementarity in the
husband’s and wife’s wealth, a wealthy woman gains greater surplus from a wealthy man
than does a low wealth woman, and will therefore be willing to outbid her. Thus the ( U ,
H) woman can outbid all other types of women in order to match with a ( P H ) man
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the ( P , H ) man – that a marriage to this man generates more surplus for her than a
marriage to any other man. If the ( P , H ) - ( U , H ) match is surplus maximizing, then we
can find a transfer d fm such that the ( U , H ) woman and ( P , H ) man are better off under
this match than under any other pairing. This is easily established, as we can use the
assumptions P>U , 0>Πm , 0>Π
f , and 0>Π fm to show that PH
UH WTP exceeds PLUH WTP ,
UH UH WTP , and UL
UH WTP . In other words, a protected, high-wealth woman’s desire for an
unprotected high-wealth man exceeds her desire for any other type of man.
Analogous arguments establish that ( P , H ) type women have the highest
willingness to pay for ( U , H ) type men, and achieve the largest surplus from those
matches. So for both men and women, all matches are of the form ( P , H ) - ( U , H ). Once
all these ( P , H ) - ( U , H ) men and women are paired up, the remaining ( U , L) women in
the market place the highest bid for ( P , L) men (their surplus maximizing choice). So the
remaining matches for both men and women are of the form ( P , L) - ( U , L).20
The general result highlighted by this model is that we should observe positive
assortative matching in men’s and women’s characteristics that are complements (such as
wealth) and negative assortative matching in characteristics that are substitutes (such as
protection status). Although the transfer payments from wives to husbands are not
precisely pinned down in the general model (the participation and incentive compatibility
constraints only place upper and lower bounds on the feasible values of d fm), we can also
d h d f ll b k d f k
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setting. If there are multiple ( U , H ) women bidding for the same ( P , H ) man, the women
would compete away the entire surplus generated by this man, and dowry payments
would increase with protection status after embankment construction, since the man’s
contribution to the total marital surplus increases with his protection status.
4.3 Embankment Effects in a Simulated Gale and Shapley (1962) Matching Model
We now relax a number of the restrictive assumptions made in the model outlined
above and simulate the dynamics of matching in a more general model. Potential spouses
can offer compensating differentials along multiple dimensions in order to secure a
desirable match. For example, a family could make up any deficiency in its relative
wealth position by offering their candidate at the age most desirable by the opposite sex,
or accepting a candidate of a less desirable age. Thus, we now endow each candidate
with a continuous characteristic that is complementary to embankment protection (such
as the amount of land or wealth), another continuous characteristic relevant to spousal
choice which is neither a complement nor a substitute to protection (e.g. age at marriage),
a discrete protection status, and an idiosyncratic attractiveness parameter.
A male m’s payoff from marrying a female f is postulated to be:
f m f f m f m f
f m aawwees ε β α +−−+Π⋅= 2* )(),(),max( (1)
e is embankment protection status, w is wealth, a is age, * f a (a constant) is the most
desired female age at marriage from a man’s perspective, f mε is the idiosyncratic pair-
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husband’s and wife’s protection status substitutes. Candidates are penalized if their age
at marriage differs from some optimal age at marriage. Female f has an analogousscoring function over each male m that she uses to evaluate which proposal to accept:
m f mmm f m f
m f aawwees ε β α +−−+Π⋅= 2* )(),(),max( (2)
With a total of M men and F women on the market, we can use (1) and (2) to
define an M x F matrix of scores over all men and women. Since we cannot describe
analytical solutions to the matches that occur, we simulate the matches by endowing 2500
men and 2500 women with a distribution of wealth, age, protection and attractiveness
characteristics. We assume that initially each individual gets an independent draw on
wealth from a truncated normal distribution over positive support, a draw on age from a
uniform distribution (on support 16-22 for women with an optimal age at marriage, * f a of
19, and on support 21-27 for men, with *ma =24), and a draw on preferences for each
individual of the opposite gender from a normal (0,1) distribution. Half of all men and all
women are randomly assigned to each bank of a river with an embankment on only one
side. We add search frictions to this model by assuming that individuals are more likely
to see (and propose to) others on the market who are physically closer to them. The Gale
and Shapley (1962) algorithm identifies the stable set of matches in this market.21
Results of the matching simulation show that for both protected men and women,
the wealth (land) distribution of spouses they match with shifts to the right following
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unprotected) following embankment construction. Thus, the protected are able to secure
wealthier spouses at the expense of the unprotected. Individuals residing on the two sidesof the river are in direct competition in the marriage market, and this result comes about
because (a) the protected have an extra desirable characteristic to offer, so their offers are
more likely to be accepted and (b) due to complementarity in protection status and land,
they are more likely to extend offers of marriage to higher-wealth individuals.
For age at marriage, where no such complementarity exists, figure 4 shows that
there no clear trend to indicate that the protected are better able to secure partners at the
“optimal” age, or reduce spousal age gaps. Complementarity in inputs is therefore key to
understanding the potential effects of the embankment on the variety of possible marriage
outcomes. The model also exhibits negative assortative matching in the substitute
characteristic – protection status. Within-bank marriages are less likely to occur after
embankment construction, even with cross-bank search frictions (figure 5).
Although dowries are not well defined in this non-transferable utility model,
figure 6 plots the surplus accruing to matched men and women if the marital surplus
(over the payoff from remaining single) is divided between spouses according to Nash
bargaining. The distribution of surpluses shifts to the right for both protected men and
women. Since the dowry payment would be a positive function of the difference between
the man’s surplus and woman’s surplus, when protected men (women) marry unprotected
women (men), dowry payments increase (decrease). This result would also be predicted
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Thus, our simulated matching model generates predictions consistent with the
results of our analytical model:1. If the embankment mitigates risk, then we should observe more cross-river
marriages after embankment construction. Search frictions across the river may
dampen this effect.
2. Positive wealth or health benefits conferred by the embankment that are
complementary across spouses should lead to positive assortative pull by
protection status. Characteristics independent of the embankment (such as age)
should remain unaffected.
3. In general, the level of dowry received by protected men should increase
following embankment construction.
5. Empirical Results
5.1 Basic Estimation Strategy
Our difference-in-difference set-up compares the marriage market outcomes for protected
households following embankment construction to their pre-embankment outcomes, after
differencing out the corresponding change in unprotected household outcomes. 22 We
include household fixed effects where possible, which controls for household-specific
unobservable preferences such as heterogeneous attitudes toward risk. In this case, each
observation becomes a household experiencing at least one marriage before and at least
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important to note that the empirical results presented next do not constitute a direct test of
the models developed in the previous section, but jointly the theory and the empiricalresults help us sensibly describe the changes in the marriage market following
embankment construction.
5.2 Household Responses to Changes in Risk Exposure
We first examine whether marriage outcomes respond to the embankment in ways
that are consistent with the construction reducing exposure to flood risk. For risk averse
individuals the embankment may lower their demand for mitigating risk through other
channels (e.g. marrying daughters into geographically distant households not subject to
the same weather patterns or planting different crops, a la Rosenzweig and Stark, 1989).
We would then expect to see changes in female migration patterns for marriage following
embankment construction. Difference-in-difference results from table 5 find no evidence
of such behavior, in that female marriage migration rates into households outside their
own villages or outside the Matlab area do not differentially change following
embankment construction for women from protected households.
Further, the theoretical model showed that if risk mitigation benefits of the
embankment were an important consideration, then we would expect to see negative
assortative matching in protection status. The last two columns of table 5 (and the last
column of table 10) show no evidence of assortative matching by embankment protection
in either direction. 24 In general, households are much more likely to marry others who
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are located closer to them (see the coefficients on “protected” in table 5), an indication of
search frictions in the marriage market, but this propensity to marry close does not
differentially change after embankment construction. This highlights the possibility that
empirical results on assortative matching based on cross-sectional data may be
uninformative, since it is difficult to separate out search frictions from true assortative
matching in cross-sectional data. Our panel data, which allows us to control for both
“protected” and “post*protected” (labeled “embankment”) helps resolve the issue.
In table 6, we do find that protected households become 4-5 percentage points less
likely to marry into different occupations following embankment construction, an
indication that some households use the marriage market to diversify income risk. This
result may merely indicate assortative matching in wealth rather than response to risk if
the correlation is driven by rich protected farmers marrying other rich protected farmers
following embankment construction. However, the last two columns indicate otherwise;
the correlation is entirely driven by households engaged in non-farming occupations.
In summary, the embankment does not differentially change households’
propensity to diversify and hedge against risk through marriage along most dimensions,
which is further evidence that changes in risk exposure is not the dominant effect of the
embankment. Non-farmers on the protected side (who did not experience the agricultural
wealth shock) are less likely to occupationally diversify through marriage. This could be
a response to lowered risk exposure, or because non-farmers find it more difficult to
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5.3 Household Responses to the Wealth Shock
If protected households become wealthier following embankment construction
and can offer “protection” as a desirable marriage market characteristic, then the
matching model predicts that such households would seek out better spousal
characteristics that are complementary to their own in producing marital surplus (e.g.
socio-economic status), but not necessarily characteristics which are not complementary.
Since land is the primary asset for Matlab households, we measure a spouse’s socio-
economic status according to the amount of land owned by the head of the household in
1982. 25 We also look for effects on changes on age at marriage and spousal age gaps.
Protected households become 3 percentage points more likely to marry into
households with above average amounts of land after embankment construction relative
to the unprotected (a 10 percent increase from their pre-embankment likelihood of 32
percent, see table 7). The direction of this change is robust to including household fixed
effects, although the effect becomes statistically weaker when the identification comes
from multiple marriages before and after embankment construction in the same
household. 26 Furthermore, a triple difference in table 7 confirms that the effects are
entirely driven by protected farmers, who experienced the largest gain in assets between
1982 and 1996 and are the primary beneficiaries of embankment construction. Protected
farmers (who form 58 percent of our sample) exhibit a 5.3 percentage point increase in
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the propensity to marry into wealthy households (a 16 percent increase at the mean)
following embankment construction relative to unprotected farmers, whereas the effect
among non-farmers is essentially zero.
In order to establish that our results are not crucially dependent on data from the
years farthest after embankment construction, we include additional specifications that
eliminate the last three years of the sample (the post-embankment years then become
1989-1993). This limited sample does not alter the results (in fact, makes them stronger),
supporting embankment construction as the cause of a discrete one-time change in socio-
economic conditions for the protected.
Consistent with theory, we find no effect of the embankment on either age at
marriage or spousal age gaps, which we interpret as independent (i.e. not complementary
or substitute) characteristics in the marriage market. The coefficient signs are indicative
that both protected men and women are able to differentially delay marriage, but these
age effects are statistically indistinguishable from zero (see table 8).
Tobit models in table 9 regress each woman’s report of dowry payment from the
1996 MHSS data as a function of husband’s embankment protection status. Comparing
the “Protected Husband” and “Year*Protected” coefficients, we see that protected men
start receiving larger dowries than unprotected men in 1989 or 1990 (the beginning of the
post-embankment period) for all specifications. 27 The “premium” that protected men
command in the years after embankment construction is quite larger - roughly 40% of the
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We check that our results are not generated by the endogenous sorting of
households around the embankment after construction. 5 percent of our sample migrates
to another area in Matlab during the post-embankment period for a reason other than
marriage, and re-estimating the models without these migrants does not qualitatively
change the results (see Appendix table A3). 28 In addition, our results are robust to
exclusion of marriage observations that end in divorce and to the exclusion of non-
Muslims, who follow different marriage customs and face a narrower market.
6. Effects on Consanguinity
Although the biological and genetic risks for the offspring of the union of
biologically close relatives are well understood in the scientific community,
consanguineous marriages remain common practice in much of the developing world
(Grant and Bittles, 1997; New York Times, 2003). While the rates of consanguinity are
falling over time in both protected and unprotected households in Matlab, table 10 shows
the drop is much larger among protected households after the embankment is built. In the
difference-in-difference, protected households show a 2.5 percentage point greater
decrease in the likelihood of marrying a biological relative (i.e. second cousin or closer)
after the embankment over and above the change among the unprotected. In the
household fixed effects specification controlling for gender and birth order effects, we
find that the same family is 40% (about 3 percentage points) less likely to marry a
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younger child to a biological relative after they are protected by embankment, than their
older child who married prior to the embankment construction. 29
There are several possible conceptual links between the embankment and rates of
consanguinity. First, if consanguinity is a desirable marriage outcome based on cultural
or religious preferences, then protected households experiencing a positive wealth shock
from the embankment may become more able to attract (or pay for) such marriages. This
theory is rejected by our difference-in-difference results showing differential decreases in
consanguinity following embankment construction rather than increases. Other possible
motivations for consanguinity are consistent with these results. For instance, if
consanguinity is an inferior marriage outcome, protected households, with the additional
attractive characteristic they offer on the marriage market, may be more likely to avoid
this outcome. Consanguinity may also be a response to risk exposure if households
prefer to marry cousins in order to form robust inter-generational bonds with the
extended family. 30
Finally, it has been postulated that households marry within the family in South
Asia in order to avoid large dowry payments at the time of marriage (Caldwell et al.,
1983; Bittles, 1994; Do, Iyer and Joshi 2009). This last link must be a little more
complicated, since one must explain why a rational male would forego larger dowry
payments in the outside market in order to marry his female cousin. Do, Iyer, and Joshi
(2009) develop a model predicting that dowry and consanguinity act as substitutes to
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instead choose to free-ride on investments by the groom’s family. The authors outline an
optimal tradeoff between dowries (pre-marital transfers) and consanguinity (close family
ties) that can help overcome this problem. One implication of their model is that in the
presence of tight credit markets, dowries will become more costly relative to
consanguinity. In this case, we should expect to see higher levels of consanguinity
among poorer families, since credit constrained households who cannot borrow to pay
dowries at the time of marriage may use consanguinity as a way to delay payments. The
promise to pay over a longer period is more credible when made within the family.
Consistent with this hypothesis, while the MHSS data shows that the dowry transfer at
the time of marriage is much smaller in consanguineous unions (see table 9),
conversations with Matlab residents during our fieldwork indicated the total amount of
effective dowry transfer over the course of the marriage may not be any different.
In order to identify these effects further, we look for additional ancillary evidence
in favor of the credit constraint story above as a motivation for consanguinity that
explains its link to the embankment. The embankment, by increasing wealth on the
protected side, relaxed the liquidity constraint (in the sense that these now wealthier
households had more dowry to offer at the time of marriage), taking away this important
motivation for marrying within the family. We first show that the dowry transfer at the
time of marriage is almost 50% lower at the mean in consanguineous unions (see table 9).
Second, we show that the drop in consanguinity following embankment construction is
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drop among protected females relatively more than males if the dowry payment and
credit constraint story is correct. The same protected family is up to 4.7 percentage
points less likely to marry their younger daughter to her cousin after embankment
construction relative to her older sibling, while for males, this drop is only about half as
large and not significantly different from zero in the fixed effects specifications.
7. Conclusion
Although the placement of the embankment may not be entirely random, it
provides plausibly exogenous variation to examine the determinants of conditions of
marriage through more rigorous empirical analysis than had been possible previously in
the large literatures on marriage in sociology and in economics. The first part of the
paper documents the following changes in marriage markets following wealth gains that
accrue to a subset of Matlab residents:
1. There is increasing segregation in the marriage market in terms of spousal wealth.
Members of farming households who benefit from the wealth shock are differentially
more likely to marry into wealthy households, and non-farmers living on the
protected side of the river find it increasingly difficult to marry into the now-
wealthier farming households.
2. Men from these protected (wealthier) households start commanding larger dowries.
3. Neither women nor men from protected households are able to delay marriage. Nor
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The second part of the paper establishes that the practice of marrying biological
relatives appears to be closely linked to the institution of dowry. Rural Bangladeshi
households engage in consanguinity in response to the absence of credit for paying
dowries at the time of marriage. With the high prevalence of consanguinity in South
Asia, Middle East and North Africa it is important to understand the underlying socio-
economic drivers of this practice. The triple difference created by the embankmentconstruction (by gender, protected side of river, pre/post) allowed us to bring credible
empirical evidence to bear on this important question for the first time. The high child
morbidity and mortality effects of consanguinity reported in the literature imply that
liquidity constraints and lack of access to credit impose yet another costly burden on poor
households in developing countries through their marriage market choices.
Finally, our paper documents the general equilibrium changes associated with an
infrastructure project in disaster mitigation. Evaluation of such projects typically focus
on direct impacts on ecosystem equilibrium, agricultural practices and incomes, and
health (e.g. Haque and Zaman, 1993; Myaux et al., 1997; Paul, 1995; Thompson and
Sultana, 1996), and we show that indirect general equilibrium changes can be quite
substantial, and need to be taken into account in program evaluation.
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31
Figure 1: Matlab Surveillance Area,
the River and the Embankment
The light colored (green) polygons arevillages, the blue (double) line is the river,and the red line is the embankment
Figure 2a: The Embankment: Not Very High
and Reinforced with Sandbags
Figure 2b: Protected Bank from the Top of the
Embankment: Agricultural Fields Very Close tothe Embankment
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Figure 3: Land Distribution of Spouses of Protected and Unprotected Men in theSimulated Gale-Shapley Marriage Market
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Figure 4: Age Distribution of Spouses for Protected Men and Women in theSimulated Gale-Shapley Marriage Market
Panel A: Spousal Age Gap
Panel B: Age at Marriage
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Figure 5: Assortative Matching in Protection Status in the Simulated Model
Low Search Friction in Marriage Market:qb = 0.90 (probability of seeing a partner on the same bank)qs = 0.50 (probability of seeing a partner on the opposite bank)
Before Embankment After EmbankmentSame Side of River
Matches64% 30%
Across the River Matches 36% 70%
With Greater Search Friction in Marriages Across the River: (qb = 0.95, qs = 0.30)
Before Embankment After EmbankmentSame Side of River
Matches78% 42%
Across the River Matches 22% 56%
Figure 6: Nash Bargaining Surplus for Men and Women Pre and Post Embankment
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Table 1: Descriptive Statistics
Full Sample (ICDDR Matlab Demographic Surveillance Area)
Before Embankment After EmbankmentMean: protected unprotected protected unprotected Percentage of Consanguineous Marriages .081** .067** .044*** .059***
(.01) (.00) (.00) (.00)Female Age at Marriage 19.02 19.04 19.90 19.84
(.06) (.05) (.06) (.04)
Male Age at Marriage 26.93 25.71 27.33*** 25.96***(.15) (.10) (.12) (.08)Household Land Owned (1982) 11.12*** 10.28*** 11.44*** 10.64***
(.23) (.15) (.19) (.13)Land Owned by Spouse's Household (1982) 10.82** 9.89** 11.13*** 10.22***
(.31) (.31) (.27) (.20)Percentage of Marriages to Spouse from outside Matlab .478*** .576*** .512*** .597***
(.01) (.00) (.01) (.00)Percentage of Marriages to Spouse from outside Village .864*** .880*** .882*** .895***
(.00) (.00) (.00) (.00)Total Marriage Observations 5225 11050 8438 17896Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates t-test significant at 1%, **indicates significant at 5% level. Pre indicates 1985-1986
for consanguinity and 1982-1986 for all other variables. Post indicates 1989-1996.
MHSS 1996 Sample
Pre PostMean: protected unprotected protected unprotected Percentage of Men Receiving Dowry .11 .12 .42 .43
(.01) (.01) (.04) (.02)Value of Dowry Received by Men 576.08 575.27 4077.90 4193.57
(83.88) (46.82) (487.01) (378.62)Value of Dowry Received by Men in 389.47 524.73 5708.33* 3658.67*
Consanguineous Marriages (113.34) (109.60) (1310.88) (561.12)Total Marriage Observations 1119 2543 182 422
Standard errors in parentheses. * indicates t-test significant at 10% level. Pre indicates 1982-1986; Post indicates1989-1996. Data taken from 1996 MHSS.
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Table 2: No Pre-existing Differences in Trends in Marriage Outcomes by Protection Status
Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates t-test significant at 1% level. All models estimated using probit. All specifications include pre-embankment years 1982-1986 only. Marginal effects calculated at means of explanatory variables.
Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. ME
Protected -2.553 -2.579 -2.893 -1.525(8.164) (2.223) (1.784) (1.414)
Year -.280*** .001 .012 .002(.056) (.016) (.012) (.010)
Protected * Year .031 .031 .034 .015(.096) (.026) (.021) (.017)
Land Owned -.002 .003*** .002***(.002) (.001) (.001)
Above Avg. Amount of Land .144***(.035)
Age at Marriage
R-squaredTotal obs.Sample
.000
Pre-Embankment Years (1982-1986) Only
.011
.003
-.000
.052
6199.0117130 14938 14946
-.254
-.037
.004
ConsanguineousMarriage?
Spouse from OutsideMatlab?
-.772 -.549
Spouse Owns AboveAverage Amount of
Land?
-.656
.003
.001
.001
Spouse from DifferentVillage?
.006
.001
.006
.001
.002
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Table 3: Effect of the Embankment on Wealth
Asset Indices
Pre-embankment Post-embankment Difference
Protected Unprotected Protected Unprotected Protected Unprotected
Farmers(Landowners)
-.05*** .05*** .38 .38 .43*** .34***
(.02) (.01) (.02) (.02) (.02) (.02)
Obs. 3377 7270 3377 7270 3377 7270
Farmers(Tenant)
-.48 -.44 .03*** -.21*** .50*** .23***
(.03) (.02) (.04) (.03) (.05) (.03)
Obs. 552 1179 552 1179 552 1179
Non-FarmOccupations
.07*** .16*** .33*** .42*** .26 .26
(.03) (.02) (.02) (.02) (.03) (.02)
Obs. 1530 3207 1530 3207 1530 3207
AllOccupations
-.06*** .03*** .33 .33 .39*** .30***(.01) (.01) (.01) (.01) (.02) (.01)
Obs. 5459 11656 5459 11656 5459 11656
Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates t-test significant at 1% level; ** indicates significance at 5% level. Asset index constructed using principal components factor analysis, and measureshousehold ownership of any combination of the following assets: radio, watch or clock, bicycle, cows, and hurricane lamp. Data taken from Matlab DSS 1982 and 1996 household censuses.
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Table 4: Changes in the Variance in Assets across Households within VillageFollowing Embankment ConstructionWithin-Village Variance in Assets
Pre-embankment Post-embankmentProtected .87 .91
(.04) (.04)Obs. 32
Unprotected 1.02 .96(.04) (.02)
Obs. 93 Each observation is a village in Matlab, and the table reports the variance in assets across householdswithin a village. Only villages with >80% of land on one side of the embankment or the other are included.
Table 5: Location of Spouse does not Change Differentially after Embankment
Spouse fromOutside Matlab
Spouse fromDifferentVillage
Marrying Across the River
Northern Villages Southern Villages
Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. MEProtected -.247*** -.098 -.075*** -.015 1.06*** .381 1.28*** .470
(.021) (.027) (.051) (.046)Post .053*** .021 .082*** .016 .009 .003 -.040 -.015
(.015) (.020) (.041) (.040)Embankment .031
.012.002
.000.012
.004.028
.011(.027) (.034) (.066) (.060)
R-squared .006 .002 .116 .175No. of obs. 42609 42596 7662 8596
Table 6: …but Unprotected Households More Likely to Marry into Different Occupations Marrying into Different Occupation
- Full SampleMarrying into Different Occupation
- Farmers/Non-Farmers
Diff-in-Diff Household
FE Farmers Non-FarmersCoeff. ME Coeff. Coeff. ME Coeff. ME
Protected .150*** .051 .131 .006 .187*** .074(.041) (.080) (.052)
Post -.019 -.001 .014 .067 .003 .078 .031( 031) ( 026) ( 064) ( 040)
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Table 7: Protected Households Differentially More Likely to Marry Into Wealthier Households after EmbankmentConstruction
Dependent Variable:Spouse LandOwnership Spouse Owns Above Avg. Land
Sample: FullEx. Top 5%Landowners
Full(1982 - 1996)
Ex. Last 3 years(1982 - 1993) Farmers Non-Farmers
Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. ME
Protected.871** .851** .062*
0.022.064*
0.0230.001
0.139**
0.048(0.41) (0.41) (0.035) (0.035) (0.044) (0.055)
Post 0.273 0.208 -0.025 -0.009 -0.023 -0.008 -0.034 -0.012 -0.022 -0.008(0.317) (0.317) (0.027) (0.029) (0.035) (0.042)
Embankment(Protected*Post)
0.082 0.035 .080* 0.029 .108** 0.039 .143** 0.053 0.007 0.003(0.528) (0.528) (0.044) (0.048) (0.058) (0.07)
Land Owned .073*** .103***(0.008) (0.013)
Above Avg. Amountof Land .202*** 0.073 .115*** 0.041 .159*** 0.058 .237*** 0.084(0.022) (0.025) (0.028) (0.041)
R-squared 0.006 0.005 0.006 0.003 0.004 0.007Total obs. 15649 15047 15649 12659 9075 6425
Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates significance at 1% level; ** indicates significance at 5% level; * indicates significance at 10% level. DID indicates difference-in-difference; ME indicatesmarginal effects (calculated at means of explanatory variables); FE indicates fixed effects. DID Above Avg. Land estimated using probit; all other models estimated using OLS.
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Table 8: The Embankment has Weaker Effects on Age at Marriage
Dependent Variable: Age at Marriage Spouse Age at Marriage Age GapFemales Males Female Spouses Male Spouses Male Spouses
DID FE DID FE DID FE DID FE DID ME FEProtected -.028 .215 -.067 -.051 -.056* -.019
(.091) (.182) (.095) (.127) (.033)Post .801*** 1.423*** 1.248*** 1.267*** .675*** .846*** .159* .632*** .009 .003 .024*
(.066) (.096) (.131) (.201) (.068) (.120) (.089) (.159) (.023) (.013)Embankment .086 .116 .158 .391 .012 -.095 -.013 -.257 .046 .015 .003
(.116) (.169) (.231) (.363) (.119) (.212) (.156) (.274) (.040) (.022)Age at Marriage .321*** .343*** .676*** .659*** -.051*** -.017 -.008***
(.004) (.009) (.008) (.021) (.002) (.002)R-squared .010 .023 .008 .010 .310 .316 .224 .204 .018 .012Total obs. 24349 9914 18255 6781 17362 6145 22479 8680 22749 8680Number of groups 4037 2804 2575 3602 3602
Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates significance at 1% level; * indicates significance at 10% level. DID Age Gap estimated using probit; all other models estimated using OLS. Fixed Effects models include household fixed effects.
Table 9: Husbands from Families Protected by the Embankment Command LargerDowries after 1989:
Dependent Variable: Dowry paid by WomenProtected Husband -255708.2***-244390.2***-242281.9***
(83419.0) (83769.6) (83753.4)Year 733.9*** 738.9*** 740.6***
(25.8) (26.0) (26.0)Year * Protected Husband 128.6*** 122.9*** 121.8***
(42.2) (42.3) (42.3)Age at Marriage -544.9*** -547.6*** -560.1***
(55.9) (56.2) (56.3)Consanguineous Marriage -2346.8***
(596.1)Consan. (Maternal Relative) -2521.7**
(1128.2)Consan. (Paternal Relative) -1698.9*
(949.9)R-squared .045 .046 .046Total obs. 5699 5674 5674
Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates significance at 1% level; ** indicates significancet 5% l l * i di t i ifi t 10% l l All d l t bit d 1996 MHSS d t
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Table 10: Rates of Consanguinity Drop in Protected Households
Consanguinity Protected SpouseDID DID FE FE DID
Coeff. ME Coeff. ME Coeff. MEProtected .089* .011 .090* .011 1.194*** .437(.047) (.047) (.034)Post -.070** -.008 -.069** -.008 -.010* -.014** -.015** -.016 -.006(.032) (.034) (.006) (.006) (.007) (.029)Embankment -.236*** -.025 -.228*** -.024 -.028***-.033*** -.030** .011 .004(.056) (.059) (.010) (.011) (.012) (.044)Land Owned -.001 -.000 -.001 -.000 .001** .000
(.001) (.001) (.001)Male .039 .038(.031) (.034)
Oldest Child -.005 -.015(.009) (.012)
Youngest Child .007 -.002(.009) (.011)
Male * Oldest Child -.007 .010(.016) (.021)
Male * Youngest Child -.033*** -.020(.012) (.015)
Further Controls:Number of Brothers No Yes YesNumber of Sisters No Yes YesSample Years 82-96 82-93 82-96 82-96 82-93 82-96R-squared .004 .004 .001 .001 .001 .150Total obs. 31189 23463 14707 12230 9258 16302
Number of groups 5436 4675 3721Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates significance at 1% level; ** indicates significance at 5% level; * indicates significanceat 10% level. DID indicates difference-in-difference; ME indicates marginal effects (calculated at means of explanatory variables);FE indicates fixed effects. DID estimated using probit; FE estimated using OLS. Fixed Effects models include household fixed effects.
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Table 11: The Change in Consanguinity Rates by Gender
MalesConsanguineous Marriage
DID DID FE FE FECoeff. ME Coeff. ME
Protected .067 .008 .067 .008(.072) (.072)Post -.079* -.009 -.085* -.010 -.005 -.028* -.027
(.048) (.051) (.011) (.015) (.017)
Embankment -.204** -.022 -.173* -.019 -.032 -.021 -.025(.085) (.090) (.020) (.024) (.026)Land Owned -.002 -.000 -.002 -.000(.001) (.001)Oldest Child -.022 -.025
(.019) (.025)Youngest Child -.043*** -.037**
(.014) (.016)Sample Years 82-96 82-93 82-96 82-96 82-93R-squared .004 .004 .001 .005 .006Total obs. 13446 10071 4259 3161 2321Number of groups 1837 1383 1037
FemalesConsanguineous Marriage
DID DID FE FE FECoeff. ME Coeff. ME
Protected .109* .013 .109* .013(.063) (.063)Post -.062 -.007 -.056 -.007 -.005 -.006 -.006(.043) (.045) (.009) (.010) (.011)
Embankment -.262*** -.027 -.272*** -.028-.043*** -.047*** -.042**
(.074) (.079) (.015) (.016) (.018)Land Owned -.000 -.000 -.000 -.000(.001) (.001)Oldest Child -.004 -.012
(.012) (.016)Youngest Child .003 .003
(.011) (.013)Sample Years 82-96 82-93 82-96 82-96 82-93R-squared .005 .005 .001 .001 .001Total obs. 17743 13392 6186 5403 4034
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Appendix
Table A1: List of Variables
Marriage Outcome DefinitionValue of Dowry Total estimated cash value of dowry paid to husband in TakaConsanguinity Individual married 1 st, 2nd, or other cousinSpouse Land Owned Land owned by head of spouse’s household in 1982
(measured in decimals)Spouse Above Average Land Spouse’s household owns more than 10.347 decimals of land
(avg. land owned by households of spouses chosen within thesample period)
Age at Marriage Age of individual at time of marriageSpouse Age at Marriage Age of spouse at time of marriageSpouse Age Gap Indicator for whether or not male spouse is more than 10 years
older than the female marriage observation Protected Spouse Group status of spouse (time-invariant indicator for whether or
not spouse’s household is protected by embankment)
Explanatory Variables Definition Protected Group status of individual Post Indicator equal to 1 if marriage year between 1989-1996 and 0 if
marriage year between 1982-1987 Embankment Embankment effect (interaction of Protected and Post ) Land Owned Land owned by head of individual’s household in 1982 Above Average Land Owned Household owns more than 10.744 decimals of land (avg. land
owned by households of individuals getting married within thesample period)
Farmer Indicator equal to 1 if household head is a farmer and 0otherwise
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Table A2: Descriptive Statistics for Fixed Effects Sample
Pre-embankment Post-embankmentMean: Protected Unprotected Protected Unprotected Percentage of Consanguineous Marriages .09*** .06*** .05 .05
(.01) (.00) (.00) (.00)Female Age at Marriage 18.86 18.97 19.98 19.92
(.11) (.10) (.10) (.07)Male Age at Marriage 24.21 24.20 25.76 25.64
(.17) (.13) (.13) (.09)Household Land Owned (1982) 11.03 10.25 11.13** 10.35**
(.43) (.29) (.33) (.20)
Land Owned by Spouse's Household (1982) 10.69 10.14 11.24* 10.28*(.66) (.47) (.48) (.32)
Percentage of Marriages to Spouse from outside Matlab .47*** .59*** .51*** .59***(.01) (.01) (.01) (.01)
Percentage of Marriages to Spouse from outside Village .87** .89** .89 .90(.01) (.01) (.01) (.00)
Total Marriage Observations 1233 2699 2626 5672Standard errors in parentheses. *** indicates t-test significant at 1%, **indicates significant at 5% level, * indicates significant at 10% level. Pre indicates 1985-1986; Post indicates 1989-1996. Sample taken from fixed effects estimation for consanguinity.
Family Size in 1982 Pre-embankment Post-embankment
Mean: Protected Unprotected Protected Unprotected DID Sample 6.69 6.61 6.85 6.82
(.07) (.04) (.03) (.02)Obs. 2288 4842 7741 16318
Fixed Effects Sample 6.76 6.71 6.90 6.90(.09) (.06) (.06) (.04)
Obs. 1152 2498 2458 5353Standard errors in parentheses. Pre indicates 1985-1986; Post indicates 1989-1996. Samples
taken from difference-in-difference and fixed effects estimations for consanguinity.
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