The performance of politicians: The effect of gender quotas |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Economics and Law, University of Rome “Sapienza”, Via del Castro Laurenziano 9, 00161 Rome, Italy;2. School of Economics and Finance, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E2 4NS London, UK;3. SEAM, University of Messina, Messina, Italy;1. University of Warwick, Department of Economics, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom;2. University of Michigan and NBER, Lorch Hall 219, 611 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, United States;1. University of Oklahoma, 308 Cate Center Drive, Norman, OK 73019, United States;2. UC Berkeley, Center for Effective Global Action, 207 Giannini Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States;3. College of Charleston, 66 George Street, Charleston, SC 29424, United States |
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| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether the gender of elected politicians affects political outcomes at the municipal level. Relying on Italian administrative data from 1991 to 2009, we are able to instrument the gender of elected politicians using an institutional exogenous change: a gender quota in the candidacy list enforced only in a subsample of municipalities 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 increase significantly both the efficacy of policies targeting women and households, proxied by the fertility rate, and the efficiency of the municipal administration, proxied by the actual size of the administrative bodies. These results, which are robust to several specifications and checks, suggest that affirmative action enhancing gender equality in political representation may be beneficial not only in terms of social justice but also from a political outcome perspective. |
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| Keywords: | Gender Municipal government Political outcomes Fertility |
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