Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana

We study the role of traditional norms in land allocation and human capital investment. We exploit a policy experiment in Ghana that increased the land that children from matrilineal groups could inherit from their fathers. Boys exposed to the reform received 0.9 less years of education—an effect dr...

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Main Authors:	La Ferrera, Eliana, Milazzo, Annamaria
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	American Economic Association 2017
Subjects:	EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT CULTURAL NORMS LAND INHERITANCE PROPERTY RIGHTS LAND ALLOCATION HUMAN CAPITAL EDUCATION GENDER
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29062

id	okr-10986-29062
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-290622021-05-25T10:54:42Z Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana La Ferrera, Eliana Milazzo, Annamaria EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT CULTURAL NORMS LAND INHERITANCE PROPERTY RIGHTS LAND ALLOCATION HUMAN CAPITAL EDUCATION GENDER We study the role of traditional norms in land allocation and human capital investment. We exploit a policy experiment in Ghana that increased the land that children from matrilineal groups could inherit from their fathers. Boys exposed to the reform received 0.9 less years of education—an effect driven by landed households, for whom the reform was binding. We find no effect for girls, whose inheritance was de facto unaffected. These patterns suggest that before the reform matrilineal groups invested more in education than they would if unconstrained, to substitute for land inheritance, underscoring the importance of cultural norms. 2017-12-20T17:47:49Z 2017-12-20T17:47:49Z 2017-10 Journal Article American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1945-7782 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29062 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo American Economic Association American Economic Association Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research Africa Ghana
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT CULTURAL NORMS LAND INHERITANCE PROPERTY RIGHTS LAND ALLOCATION HUMAN CAPITAL EDUCATION GENDER
spellingShingle	EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT CULTURAL NORMS LAND INHERITANCE PROPERTY RIGHTS LAND ALLOCATION HUMAN CAPITAL EDUCATION GENDER La Ferrera, Eliana Milazzo, Annamaria Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana
geographic_facet	Africa Ghana
description	We study the role of traditional norms in land allocation and human capital investment. We exploit a policy experiment in Ghana that increased the land that children from matrilineal groups could inherit from their fathers. Boys exposed to the reform received 0.9 less years of education—an effect driven by landed households, for whom the reform was binding. We find no effect for girls, whose inheritance was de facto unaffected. These patterns suggest that before the reform matrilineal groups invested more in education than they would if unconstrained, to substitute for land inheritance, underscoring the importance of cultural norms.
format	Journal Article
author	La Ferrera, Eliana Milazzo, Annamaria
author_facet	La Ferrera, Eliana Milazzo, Annamaria
author_sort	La Ferrera, Eliana
title	Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana
title_short	Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana
title_full	Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana
title_fullStr	Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana
title_full_unstemmed	Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana
title_sort	customary norms, inheritance, and human capital : evidence from a reform of the matrilineal system in ghana
publisher	American Economic Association
publishDate	2017
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29062
_version_	1764468400391716864

Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital : Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana

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