An Unintended Consequence of Gender Balance Laws: Mafia Fuels Political Violence

Anna Laura Baraldi (), Giovanni Immordino, Erasmo Papagni and Marco Stimolo ()
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Anna Laura Baraldi: Università della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli
Marco Stimolo: Università di Siena

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: Several studies document that women are more honest than men, so an increase in their political representation improves political institutions. However, greater honesty among politicians is an obstacle to mafias’ influence, who may respond by escalating violence. We test this unintended consequence in Italy using Law 215/2012 whereby voters can express two preferences if they are of different genders. A Difference-in- Differences analysis documents an increase in violence probability of 0.6 times its mean (0.031). An alternative Differences-in-Discontinuities design yields similar results. These findings are not driven by the regions most plagued by mafias, and are validated by several robustness checks.

Keywords: Organized Crime; Violence; Gender balance laws. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 D73 D78 I38 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-11-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-law and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sef:csefwp:693

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