1 STRATEGIC BEHAVIOUR AND MARRIAGE PAYMENTS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM SENEGAL by F. Gaspart and J.Ph. Platteau* Centre de Recherche en Economie du DØveloppement (CRED) Department of Economics, University of Namur Rempart de la Vierge, 8 B-5000 Namur, Belgium Fax : 32-81-724840 Email : jean-philippe.platteau@fundp.ac.be , frederic.gaspart@fundp.ac.be This version : March 2002 * Thanks are due to the Ministry of Belgian Cooperation, the Rural Development Department of the FAO, and the University of Namur which provided the funds required to carry out the present study. Our gratitude also goes to Abdoulaye Niang and his team of enumerators from the University Gaston Berger at Saint-Louis (Senegal) who carried out most of the fieldwork. Also, we want to thank Anita Abraham who played a major role in the design and the testing of the questionnaire, as well as in the discussion of the results. Lastly, the study has relied on the valuable help of Aminata Niane who participated in the checking and coding of the questionnaires, and of Luc Stevens who assisted in the processing of the data.