The performance of politicians. The effect of gender quotas

Michela Braga () and Francesco Scervini

Working papers from Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica

Abstract: This paper investigates whether the gender of elected politicians af- fects the political municipal outcomes. Relying on Italian administra- tive data from 1991 to 2009, we are able to instrument the gender of elected politician using an institutional exogenous change: a gender quota in the candidacy list enforced only in a subsample of municipali- ties and for a short period of time. While the gender of politicians does not affect the general `quality of life', proxied by the internal migration rate, it does affect significantly both the efficacy of policies targeted to women and households, proxied by the fertility rate, and the efficiency of municipal administration, proxied by the size of administrative bod- ies. These results are robust to several specifications and robustness checks. Affirmative actions enhancing gender equality in political rep- resentation may be then beneficial not only in terms of social justice, but also from a political outcome perspective.

Keywords: Gender; Municipal government; Political outcomes; Fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 J13 J16 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The performance of politicians: The effect of gender quotas (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipu:wpaper:35

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