Research

JOB MARKET PAPER 

Female Genital Cutting and Bride Price   [View] [Download]

Awarded Best Job Market Paper by the European Economic Association and Unicredit Foundation

Abstract. This paper explores the relationship between female genital cutting (FGC) and the marriage market. I develop a general equilibrium model of parents' decisions to cut their daughters, where the bride price, the groom’s traditional payment to the bride’s family upon marriage, is determined endogenously in the marriage market. The model predicts that in a context where FGC is a marker of chastity, an unobservable but valuable trait in the marriage market, the practice increases the marital surplus, the bride price. I use a difference-in-differences approach and test the model’s predictions on Egyptian data. I build a village-level dataset of the coverage of an anti-FGC campaign, using archive information on Egyptian radio transmitters and Irregular Terrain Model (ITM) software. I find that cohorts exposed to the campaign are 13% less likely to be cut and receive a 24% lower bride price. To further support my finding that FGC generates marriage market returns, I provide evidence suggesting that the scarcity of cut women led to an increase in their bride price. When investigating whether FGC is a marker of chastity, I find that the decline in FGC is substituted by an increase in pre-marital virginity testing and child marriage. Finally, to better understand whether these marriage market returns provide an incentive for parents to cut their daughters, I conduct a cross-Africa analysis. I find that the practice of bride price is associated with a 16% higher likelihood of a daughter being cut.

Presented: NBER Summer Institute 2022 (Boston), Pacific Conference for Development Economics (San Francisco), Development and Political Economics Graduate Conference (Stanford), EEA-ESEM (Bocconi), Novafrica (Nova), SEHO (UCL), 100 years of Economic Development (Cornell), African Meeting of the Econometric Society, LAGV (Marseille), EDGE Jamboree (Copenhagen), Canadian Economic Association
Upcoming: CSAE (Oxford), Delhi Winter School-Econometric Society (Delhi)


WORKING PAPER

The Price of Silence: Marriage Transfers and Women’s Attitude Toward Intimate Partner Violence   [View] [Download]
Nominated Best Paper Award  in Development Economics - Delhi Winter School and Econometric Society

Abstract. Intimate partner violence (IPV) continues to be seen as justifiable in many cultures despite its devasting health effects on women. This paper proposes that the value of the traditional marriage payment- the dower- received by women at marriage constitutes a divorce constraint and influences their attitude toward Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Using novel data (JLMPS 2016), I provide the first empirical evidence of the dower’s effect on women’s well-being in Jordan where despite considerable public effort, IPV remains widely accepted. I estimate the effect of the dower’s value on women’s attitude toward IPV. Using an instrumental variable strategy, I proxy unusual cash inflows from Gulf countries to Jordan with the real international oil price variations to instrument the dower’s value. I find that a higher dower has a positive and significant impact on women’s likelihood of considering IPV justified in a variety of domestic contexts. When I investigate mechanisms, my results are consistent with an intra-household model predicting that a higher dower reduces women’s outside options, since women’s access to unilateral divorce in Jordan is conditional on repayment of the dower.

Presented: AEA/ASSA Annual Meeting, MEEA/ASSA Annual Meeting, 12th World Congress of the Econometric Society (ESWC), Pacific Conference for Development Economics (PacDev),  European Economic Association (EEA), Southern American Economic Association (SEA), Canadian Public Economics Group Conference (CPEGC), Workshop Gender Economics (Nottingham University). 

Featured: Women in Econ/Policy Newsletter, EEA Congress Media Briefings.


WORK IN PROGRESS