5. Results. The OLS estimates of the hedonic dowry function are reported in Table 3. Columns one and two report estimates excluding a wealth variable for the groom household, column three includes it, and column four considers both the wealth and caste affiliations of the groom household. All variables with the exception of year of marriage, the marriage squeeze index and the dummy variables for region and caste affiliations are measured in logs. The influence of groom's education on net dowry is as one would expect: educated grooms are worth more in the marriage market, as is indicated by the significant positive coefficient in the hedonic function for groom's education. The relationship between groom's age at marriage and dowry is also significant and reveals that the older the groom the larger the dowry. Bergstrom and Bagnoli (1993) outline a model that predicts why on average women marry older men. They argue that in a society in which the economic roles of males are more varied than the roles of females, the relative desirability of females as marriage partners may become evident at an earlier age than in the case of males. Thus, in equilibrium, males who regard their prospects as unusually good, choose to wait until their economic success is revealed before choosing a bride. Their argument can be applied to the relationship between the age of the groom and the size of the dowry: older men could have been economically more successful and, being a better match, they received larger dowries from the bride households.

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