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Land Tenure and Missing Women: Evidence from North India

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  • Lal, Apoorva

Abstract

While a substantial literature documents a robust positive relationship between property rights and economic growth, the effects of institutions on demographic and socio- political outcomes are less well understood. This paper studies this relationship by using variation in property rights systems induced by historically contingent assignment of districts in North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to study their effects on modern day demographic outcomes. We find that villages where property rights were granted to the cultivators have more skewed sex-ratios, lower female literacy, and lower female labor force participation rate than villages where property rights were granted to the landlord. These findings suggest that, in contrast to the robust positive relationship between institutions and economic outcomes, economic institutions may, depending on existing social norms, ameliorate or exacerbate social inequalities.

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  • Lal, Apoorva, 2019. "Land Tenure and Missing Women: Evidence from North India," SocArXiv 6vdf7_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:6vdf7_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/6vdf7_v1
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