Mafia wears out women in power: Evidence from italian municipalities

Anna Laura Baraldi, Giovanni Immordino and Marco Stimolo

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2022, vol. 193, issue C, 213-236

Abstract: Organized crime targets politicians with discretionary power over public resources, increasing the perceived risk of a political career and lowering its expected payoff. Since experimental evidence shows that women are more risk averse than men, organized crime infiltration should prove more effective in discouraging highly qualified women to take part in politics compared to men with the same level of power. The difference-in-differences estimates, which exploit the municipal government dissolution for mafia infiltration as an exogenous shock to the involvement of organized crime in local politics, reveal that organized crime has a stronger negative effect on the quality of female politicians compared to men. However, our results are compatible with alternative mechanisms such as organized crime influence on voters’ culture and on parties’ recruitment policies. Since our analysis is not conclusive, further research is needed to clearly identify the most likely driver of our results.

Keywords: Power; Gender; Organized crime; Politician’s quality; Municipal government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 J16 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Mafia Wears Out Women in Power: Evidence from Italian Municipalities (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:193:y:2022:i:c:p:213-236

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.11.022

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