In plain sight? Reconsidering the linkage between brideprice and violent conflict 1

Persistent brideprice inflation has been linked to greater political violence. However, empirically testing this argument is complicated by the paucity of data on brideprice. We argue that despite the lack of over-time brideprice data, one can proxy for variation in marriage markets using changes to population, economic growth, and marriage rates themselves, thereby offering a clearer test of the brideprice–violence relationship. Our analysis suggests that there is little empirical support for such a relationship, and concludes that the previous support was largely due to data limitations and omitted confounds.