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This seems very much at odds with a stylised fact about India: in that  
country gold jewellery has traditionally been a store of wealth, not  
just ornamentation, and often makes up a large fraction of a dowry in  
traditional segments of society. This applies not merely to the most  
wealthy class but to those farther down the economic ladder who manage  
to save over time. I would expect that India would differ from many  
other countries in which it is less likely to hold a significant  
fraction of household wealth in the form of gold jewellery.  See for  
example
http://ideas.repec.org/p/amu/wpaper/0907.html
in which they mention 'strong cultural valuation of gold' with regard  
to China and India.
Kit Baum   |   Boston College Economics & DIW Berlin   |   http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html
                              An Introduction to Stata Programming   
|   http://www.stata-press.com/books/isp.html
   An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata  |   http://www.stata-press.com/books/imeus.html
On Apr 25, 2009, at 02:33 , Bas wrote:
Well, the point you made Martin,
shows a very interesting aspect of India, which is its incredibly
strong class society. The top class, which apparently makes up almost
all jewellery demand appears unaffected by the state of the economy.
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