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What do women want? Female suffrage and the size of government

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  • Bravo-Ortega, Claudio
  • Eterovic, Nicolas A.
  • Paredes, Valentina

Abstract

The economic literature has attributed part of the increase in government expenditure over the 20th century to female voting. This is puzzling, considering that the political science literature has documented that women tended to be more conservative than men over the first half of the 20th century. We argue that the current estimates of this relationship are afflicted by endogeneity bias. Using data for 46 countries and a novel set of instruments related to the diffusion of female suffrage across the globe, we find that, on average, the introduction of female suffrage did not increase either social expenditures or total government expenditure.

Suggested Citation

  • Bravo-Ortega, Claudio & Eterovic, Nicolas A. & Paredes, Valentina, 2018. "What do women want? Female suffrage and the size of government," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 132-150.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecosys:v:42:y:2018:i:1:p:132-150
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2017.04.001
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    Cited by:

    1. José Javier Bercoff & Osvaldo Meloni, 2023. "Looking inside the ballot box: gender gaps in Argentine presidential elections," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 70(2), pages 237-255, June.
    2. Ascensión Andina-Díaz & Paula Penalva & M. Socorro Puy, 2020. "Women’s Preferences for Social Spending: Theory and Evidence from Spanish Political Representatives," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 235(4), pages 119-151, December.
    3. Konstantin Yanovskiy & Sergey Zhavoronkov & Ilia Zatcovetsky, 2015. "In defense of Private Discrimination: The case for religious freedom to deny services to individuals," Working Papers 0111, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2015.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Female suffrage; Government size; Voting rights;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government

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