the salience of marriage and dowry in the Indian context, it is unsurprising that the recall error is not substantial.

External validity of dowry data: We corroborate the cross-sectional patterns by caste and religion in 2006 REDS using dowry data from 2005 IHDS. Unlike REDS, IHDS elicits dowry data indirectly by asking respondents how much money is usually spent at the time of the marriage by a groom’s or a bride’s family that is similar to the respondent’s family; this information is only collected for the survey year. Table A.4 shows the sample means of the net dowry paid by the bride’s family calculated using these responses for various caste and religious groups. Although our paper focuses on rural India because REDS does not cover urban areas, we also report urban dowries from the IHDS for comparison. Reassuringly, the patterns in Table A.4 are identical to those in the REDS data.<sup>24</sup> The similarities between REDS and IHDS also assuage concerns about differential under- or over-reporting of dowry payments and receipts by the sampled households.

# **2.3 Savings**

Using the detailed information available in REDS, we construct the following measures of householdlevel saving: savings in financial institutions,<sup>25</sup> savings in jewelry, savings in livestock, market investments,<sup>26</sup> and savings in durable goods. The _flow_ saving variables are constructed based on the value of each item purchased (deposits) and sold (withdrawals) during the year before the survey.

The literature describing saving behavior of households in developing countries is quite limited, primarily due to the lack of micro-level data. The bulk of the existing research examines micro-savings for small samples that are not nationally representative (typically, in the context of randomized control trials) or is based on incomplete data on the various forms of savings (see Karlan et al. (2014) for a literature review). For India, we are not aware of any other nationally representative survey that collects detailed data on various forms of savings, except REDS.<sup>27</sup> Information on various types of savings allows us to examine the changes in the entire savings portfolio of a household rather than just one form of saving; we can thus capture substitution across different modes of savings.

Table 1 shows that per capita savings in financial institutions is the biggest component of the annual flow of per capita household savings. This is true even for the annual stock of savings; however, unlike the flow measure, the magnitude of the stock of jewelry, livestock, and other durable

> 24Among various questions related to spending at the time of marriage, 2005 IHDS also reports ‘average cash’ given as a gift at the time of the daughter’s marriage. The average cash reported is equal to INR 18,209 (USD 289).

> 25Saving in financial institutions comprise savings in commercial banks, private banks, post office, chit funds, self-help groups, and co-operative societies or banks.

> 26These comprise investments in the stock market, mutual funds, and life insurance.

> 27The Debts and Investment Schedule of the National Sample Survey of India collects household data on assets and liabilities but does not include a roster of household members, which is essential for our empirical strategy.

8