NGECON lädt ein zum Vortrag von Zohal Hessami (Universität Konstanz) [30.04.18]
Unter dem Namen Next Generation Economics (NGECON) haben sich Post-Docs der Universitäten Hohenheim und Tübingen zusammengeschlossen. Im Mittelpunkt steht der fachliche Austausch miteinander und im Rahmen einer Seminarreihe mit hochrangigen Gästen. Der nächste Vortragstermin in Hohenheim ist am Donnerstag, 03.05.2018, 12-13:30 Uhr in HS 36:
Zohal Hessami (Universität Konstanz) presents "Women in parliament and policy choices: Evidence from open-list elections"
Abstract: The representation of women in politics has increased across the globe over the last few decades. Accordingly, interest in whether this rise in female representation is merely symbolic or whether it has substantive implications for policy has grown as well. We investigate this question for the legislative branch of government using unique hand-collected data on some 300,000 candidates for open-list local councils elections in Germany. Besides the name and gender of the candidates, our data covers initial and final list ranks, number of votes, party affiliation, current employment as well as a number of further characteristics. To identify a causal effect, we use the fact that in our open-list setting, the gender of the candidate who wins a mixed-gender election for the last council seat that accrues to a party is quasi-random. Our results indicate that councils with more women invest more in "pro-female" policies, notably publicly provided child care facilities, confirming that female representation has substantive implications for policy choices. We also find that these policy choices have broader economic effects. In particular, municipalities with a higher share of women in the council witness stronger female employment growth (male employment also increase, but to a smaller extent). Regarding mechanisms, our results indicate that a higher representation in the council ostensibly makes it easier for women to translate their concerns into policy. In line with this interpretation, we do not observe that female legislators raise aggregate employment by expanding public employment. There is no evidence that the effect is driven by partisan considerations, such as left-wing legislators building strategic coalitions with (conservative) female legislators. We also do not find that female legislators are less (or more) effective when the mayor is male.
CV and more on Zohal Hessami's personal website sites.google.com/site/zohalhessami/home
