land) brought into the marriage, access to an individual bank account, spending on education for each co-resident child, and the survival status or year of death of each parent. This is complemented with household-level data on the amount of resources were spent for each child on education (books/stationery, transport/hostel and private coaching/tuition) and to cure preventable diseases as well as presence of a latrine, a variable we use as a proxy for attention to preventive rather than curative health. Moreover, the survey also includes the number of children born and still alive by gender for all generation II women below the age of 60, providing information on fertility (no of children and share of daughters born) as well as sons’ and daughters’ survival rates. For generation III individuals, including not co-resident ones, information on the extent of primary or secondary school completion is also available.

Descriptive statistics on characteristics of interest for generation II and III individuals by reform status are in table 1 (see appendix table 1 for values of the same variables by state). The HSAA applies to those whose father is still alive or died after 1994. We note that 62% of generation II males’ fathers and 76% of generation II females’ fathers passed away after 1994 or are still alive so that the HSAA would apply, providing sufficient variation to identify inheritance-induced effects. While the impact of the HSAA has to be estimated based on time variation with controls and fixed effects as needed, comparing between reform and non-reform states provides some illustration of the data.

On average, generation II males received more than six years of education, but generation II females lag behind their husbands by some three years. Amounts of gifts received at the time of marriage were almost equal between males and females on average. Females have higher levels of endowments with human capital (3.81 vs 3.36) and physical assets (0.48 vs 0.45) in Maharashtra than non-reform states, a pattern that is reversed for males, lending prima facie evidence support to the HSAA having been effective. If increases in endowment and impacts induced by the HSAA through channels including actual or potential inheritance translated into bargaining power within the household for females, our variables measuring intra-household bargaining power should capture some systematical differences between Maharashtra and non-reform states. Females spent more time on productive work<sup>5</sup> (0.17 vs 0.07) and less time on household work<sup>6</sup> (0.36 vs 0.42) in the reform as compared to non-reform states. Households in the reform state are more likely to have a latrine (by 36%), a good which has been shown to be strongly preferred by females.

As inheritance legislation is likely to affect reproductive choices, we use information on number and sex ratio of children by females in generation II by drawing on survey information regarding the pregnancy history for ever married women aged 15-60. At a descriptive level doing so points towards significantly

> 5 Productive work includes salaried employment and agricultural as well as non-agricultural wage labor and self-employment.

> 6 Household work includes sewing and knitting, cooking, child care, care of the elderly, grinding and pounding, collecting fuel, fetching water, making dung cakes, and others household work.

7