Gender and Monetary Policymaking: Trends and Drivers

Donato Masciandaro (), Paola Profeta and Davide Romelli

No 1512, BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers from BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy

Abstract: This paper analyses the gender representation in monetary policy committees, offering three contributions. We propose the first index to evaluate the gender representation in monetary policymaking – i.e. the GMP Index – for a sample of 112 countries as of 2015. Second, we investigate the drivers of gender diversity in monetary policy committees. Our results show that, besides legal (Common Law), religious (Orthodox), historical (French colony) and socio-economic (female labour force) drivers, the gender representation is more likely to be relevant in countries characterized by a well-defined central bank governance, i.e. more independent central banks and less involved in supervision. Finally, we test whether gender diversity in central bank boards affects the conduct of monetary policy and hence macroeconomic outcomes. We find that gender diversity is inversely associated with inflation rates and money growth. The presence of women in central bank boards seems to be associated with a more hawkish approach to monetary policy making.

Keywords: Inflation; Monetary Policy; Central Banks and their Policies; Gender Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E31 E52 E58 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-gen, nep-mac and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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