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Podcast: Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters
Episode: Research Uncovers a Link Between the Cost of Getting Married and the Outbreak of Conflict
Description: About 75% of the world's population live in societies that practice of form of dowry payment. This is also known as brideprice and it is essentially wealth that a potential husband must pay to the family of his would-be wife. But in this way, brideprice acts as a kind of regressive flat tax that younger, and generally poorer men must pay to wealthier, older men. Hilary Matfess, a PHD candidate at Yale University, undertook a wide study of the impact of fluctuations in brideprice on broader issues related to conflict. She found that there is a positive correlation...