constraints do matter for these households.

**Type of savings.** The higher savings in FG families take the form of higher per capita formal saving in financial institutions. As Table 11 shows, we do not find a significant difference in the annual flow of jewelry saving (in precious stones and metals) among FG and FB families.<sup>39</sup> Similarly, there are no significant differences in the flow of saving in livestock (although the coefficient is positive) and saving in durable goods. One may be concerned that the lack of significant effects on these flow measures is due to the fact that purchases of durable goods are relatively infrequent. Therefore, we also examine if using the _stock_ versions of the saving variables in Table 11 yields different results. The interaction coefficients remain insignificant, however (Table A.11). This pattern of saving behavior is consistent with greater access to the banking system in rural India and the less liquid nature of jewelry relative to cash savings in bank accounts during our study period.

**Magnitudes.** Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that FG families accumulate about INR 82,817 per daughter by the time she is 15 years old, the median age at marriage in our sample.<sup>40</sup> According to 2005 IHDS data, an average bridal family spends INR 75,777 to INR 98,498 on a wedding in rural India. Thus, an average household appears to be able to save for the bulk of the wedding expenditure in advance. Any remaining shortfall is potentially met through borrowing during or close to the year of marriage.

The average daily wage for agricultural casual labor in our data is INR 61 and, for nonagricultural casual labor, it is INR 91. Assuming that fathers are able to earn these wages for the extra days worked, their income increases by INR 610 to INR 910 each year relative to their income before the birth of their first child and relative to FB families. Although the increase in labor income is significant, it is smaller than the increase in savings that we observe. It is quite possible that parents have other sources of income, besides father’s labor income, that we do not observe in our data, or that other members, e.g., brothers, may also increase their labor supply to supplement their fathers’ earnings to finance the increased savings for their sister’s dowry.

# **7 Robustness Checks**

In this section, we discuss several robustness checks that support our key findings.

## **7.1 Alternate Definitions of Expected Dowry**

In our main analysis, we proxy for dowry expectations with the average net dowry paid by brides or received by grooms from the same caste and state as the child and who married during the year of the child’s birth or the prior four years. Now, we examine the sensitivity of our estimates to alternative definitions of expected dowry.

> 39This is true irrespective of whether the family has only one child or more children.

> 40The average household size in our sample is 5.78. Thus, for the mean level of expected dowry (=INR 26,120), FG families accumulate INR 89,653 more than FB families over 15 years (= 395.89 * 2.612 * 5.78 * 15). Since FG families have 1.09 more girls than FB families, this implies that FG families save roughly INR 82,251 per daughter.

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