Abstract: Most residential homes in developing countries such as India sell before construction is complete. Completed or move-in ready homes command a premium because of the compounded cost of capital and uncertainty costs incurred over time from holding under-construction homes. In this paper, we use listing data from India's six largest urban agglomerations (UAs) between 2010-2012 and show that sellers expect 2-15% move-in ready premia in five UAs. Moreover, in four UAs, individuals reselling homes expect five to eight percentage points higher move-in ready premia than developers selling new homes because of additional costs incurred by individuals from holding under-construction homes. We do not find any evidence of substantial speculative gains among individual resellers. At mean listed prices, the expected move-in ready premium is 383% of an average household's annual income in Mumbai, India's most expensive city. Our findings indicate that within the context of a developing country, lengthy construction times and expensive capital exacerbate already poor affordability conditions.

Abstract: We study the effects of a series of state and federal reforms that granted equal inheritance rights to Indian women on the quantity and quality of children. Using a difference-in-differences methodology, we find that women who were affected by the state reforms had 0.4 more children. State reforms did not have any effect on children's heights. To assess the impact of the federal reform we use a panel data of women and a novel treatment based on the timing of their fathers' death. We find that women affected by the reform had on average 0.22 fewer children and had taller children on average. While the federal reform had no effect on the number of daughters born to this group, the number of sons born declined. Thus, we see evidence that granting property rights to women could potentially impact fertility decisions, health outcomes of children, and gender imbalance.