Empirical evidence suggests that money in the hands of mothers (as opposed to fathers) increases expenditures on children. Does this imply that targeting transfers to women promotes economic development? Not necessarily. We consider a noncooperative model of the household where a gender wage gap leads to endogenous household specialization. As a result, women indeed spend more on children and invest more in human capital. Yet, depending on the nature of the production function, targeting transfers to women may be beneficial or harmful to growth. Transfers to women are more likely to be beneficial when human capital, rather than physical capital or land, is the most important factor of production. We provide empirical evidence supportive of our mechanism: In Mexican PROGRESA data, transfers to women lead to an increase in spending on children, but a decline in the savings rate.

中文翻译：

---

女性赋权会促进经济发展吗？

经验证据表明，母亲（而不是父亲）手中的钱增加了孩子的支出。这是否意味着针对女性的转移促进了经济发展？不必要。我们考虑家庭的非合作模型，其中性别工资差距导致内生的家庭专业化。结果，妇女确实在儿童上花了更多钱，并在人力资本上投入了更多。但是，根据生产职能的性质，将目标转移给妇女可能有利或有害于增长。当人力资本而不是物质资本或土地是最重要的生产要素时，向妇女的转移更有可能受益。我们提供了支持我们机制的经验证据：在墨西哥PROGRESA数据中，向妇女的转移导致儿童支出增加，