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

Resource type
Authors/contributors
Title
A Signal to End Child Marriage: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh
Abstract
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 incentive 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 theoretical prediction, we observe substantial spillovers of the incentive on untreated nonpreferred types.
Publication
American Economic Review
Volume
113
Issue
10
Pages
2645-88
Date
2023-10
Citation
Buchmann, N., Field, E., Glennerster, R., Nazneen, S., & Wang, X. Y. (2023). A Signal to End Child Marriage: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Bangladesh. American Economic Review, 113, 2645–2688.
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