A note on marriage market clearing

Is There Dowry Inflation in South Asia?

“…The general idea is that a persistent gap in the male-to-female age at marriage combined with population growth and infant mortality declines drives a perpetual (and increasing) scarcity of grooms. More recently, a series of papers have adopted a dynamic marriage market accounting framework to assess the theoretical validity of a marriage squeeze explanation of rising dowries (Anderson 2007b;Maitra 2006aMaitra , 2006bNeelakantan and Tertilt 2007). Dowry inflation has also captured the imagination of scholars in pursuit of even deeper puzzles.…”

Measuring the Effect of a Community-Level Program on Women's Empowerment Outcomes: Evidence from India

“…The literature further agrees that the clearing of marriage markets depends on the number of men and women in the market (for theoretical models, see Becker, 1973a,b;Neelakantan and Tertilt, 2008). As a result, the local sex ratio works through the spousal age ratio to influence marriage markets and therefore household bargaining power.…”

The Black-White Gap in Non Marital Fertility: Education and Mates in Segmented Marriage Markets

“…Robustness checks using alternative age groupings suggest that the cohort data are aligned appropriately for gender differences in age at first marriage and temporal differences, as emphasized by Neelakantan and Tertilt (2008). Table 2 reports summary statistics for all variables used in estimation.…”