The idea that giving family money to women makes good development sense, since they are more likely to invest that money in the outcomes of their children, which in turn will improve a country's economic growth, is behind many of the programmes run by organisations such as the World Bank and the UN.
Tertilt and her colleagues have examined this idea and found that the truth is not so straightforward and that the outcome of such programmes is country-dependent. If a country is short on physical capital, rather than human capital, then the male pattern of spending on on investment goods and saving for the future is more useful.
