Why the marriage squeeze cannot cause dowry inflation

It has been argued that rising dowry payments are caused by population growth. According to that explanation, termed the `marriage squeeze', a population increase leads to an excess supply of brides since men marry younger women. As a result, dowry payments rise in order to clear the marriage market. The explanation is essentially static; unmarried brides do not re-enter the marriage market. This paper demonstrates that the marriage squeeze argument cannot explain dowry in°ation in a proper dynamic framework. In fact, when women, who do not ̄nd matches at the `desirable' marrying age, re-enter the marriage market as older brides, (as is the case in areas undergoing dowry in°ation), the marriage squeeze argument is shown to imply dowry de°ation. JEL Classi ̄cation Codes: J11, J12, J16, D10