Using data from rural Bangladesh, we explore the hypothesis that women attain less schooling as a result of social and financial pressure to marry young. We isolate the causal effect of marriage timing using age of menarche as an instrumental variable. Our results indicate that each additional...

We explain trends in dowry levels in Bangladesh by drawing attention to an institutional feature of marriage contracts previously ignored in the literature: mehr or traditional Islamic bride-price. We develop a model of marriage contracts in which mehr serves as a barrier to husbands exiting...

Property rights are seen as a prerequisite for economic development and poverty reduction essentially because improvements in land rights are assumed to reduce the risk expropriation, increase the possibilities of trade of land, and reduce credit rationing. If property rights are not clear there...

As an intrinsic part of the classic microfinance model, group meetings are intended to employ social capital to ensure timely repayment. Recent research suggests that more frequent meetings can increase social capital among first‐time clients. Using randomized variation in group meeting...

A key question in development economics is whether nutritional deficiencies generate intergenerational poverty traps by reducing the earnings potential of children born into poverty. To assess the causal influence on human capital of one of the most widespread micronutrient deficiencies,...

Do the repayment requirements of the classic microfinance contract inhibit investment in high-return but illiquid business opportunities among the poor? Using a field experiment, we compare the classic contract which requires that repayment begin immediately after loan disbursement to a contract...

We posit that household decision-making over fertility is characterized by moral hazard since most contraception can only be perfectly observed by the woman. Using an experiment in Zambia that varied whether women were given access to contraceptives alone or with their husbands, we find that...