A Signal to End Child Marriage: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Buchmann, Nina; Field, Erica; Glennerster, Rachel; Nazneen, Shahana; Wang, Xiao Yu
• 署名单位: Stanford University; Duke University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20220720
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2645-2688
• 关键词: social norms; dowry; women; AGE; FAMILY

摘要

Child marriage remains common even where female schooling and employment opportunities have grown. We experimentally evaluate a financial incentive to delay marriage alongside a girls' empowerment program in Bangladesh. While girls eligible for two years of incen-tive are 19 percent less likely to marry underage, the empowerment program failed to decrease adolescent marriage. We show that these results are consistent with a signaling model in which bride type is imperfectly observed but preferred types (socially conservative girls) have lower returns to delaying marriage. Consistent with our theoret-ical prediction, we observe substantial spillovers of the incentive on untreated nonpreferred types. (JEL C93, D91, J12, J13, J16, 012)