IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ctl/louvec/2006042.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Incumbents’ Interests, Voters’ Bias and Gender Quotas

Author

Listed:
  • Guillaume R., FRECHETTE
  • François, MANIQUET

    (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Department of Economics)

  • Massimo, MORELLI

Abstract

The adoption of gender quotas in party lists has been a voluntary decision by many parties in many countries, and is now a subject of discussion in many others. The Parity Law passed in France in 2001 is particularly interesting because for the first time the quota was set at 50 percent, and the deputies passing the reform are elected in single member districts. In this paper we rationalize parity on thd basis of the self interest of male incumbent deputies. The existence of a voters’ bias in favor of male candidates is sufficient to convince the incumbents to advocate for equal gender representation in party lists, because it raises the incumbents’ chance of being re-elected. We confirm empirically the existence of male bias in the French electorate and we show that parity law may have Assembly composition effects and policy effects that vary with the electoral system.

Suggested Citation

  • Guillaume R., FRECHETTE & François, MANIQUET & Massimo, MORELLI, 2006. "Incumbents’ Interests, Voters’ Bias and Gender Quotas," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2006042, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvec:2006042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2006-42.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Massimo Morelli, 2004. "Party Formation and Policy Outcomes under Different Electoral Systems," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(3), pages 829-853.
    2. Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo, 2004. "Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1409-1443, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lori Beaman & Raghabendra Chattopadhyay & Esther Duflo & Rohini Pande & Petia Topalova, 2009. "Powerful Women: Does Exposure Reduce Bias?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1497-1540.
    2. Zudenkova, Galina, 2011. "A Model of Party Discipline in a Congress," Working Papers 2072/151813, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    3. Esteve-Volart, Berta & Bagues, Manuel, 2012. "Are women pawns in the political game? Evidence from elections to the Spanish Senate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 387-399.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Francois Maniquet & Massimo Morelli & Guillaume Frechette, 2005. "Endogenous Affirmative Action: Gender Bias Leads to Gender Quotas," Economics Working Papers 0051, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science.
    2. Motz, Nicolas, 2016. "How Political Parties Shape Electoral Competition," MPRA Paper 69351, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Yasushi Asako & Takeshi Iida & Tetsuya Matsubayashi & Michiko Ueda, 2014. "Dynastic Politicians: Theory and Evidence from Japan," Working Papers 1412, Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics.
    4. Damien Bol & Arnaud Dellis & Mandar oak, 2015. "Endogenous Candidacy in Electoral Competition: A Survey," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2015-19, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    5. Motz, Nicolas, 2023. "A career like no one else can offer: On the conditions for two-party dominance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Cho, Seo-young & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2010. "Compliance for big brothers: An empirical analysis on the impact of the anti-trafficking protocol," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 118, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Kaivan Munshi & Mark Rosenzweig, 2008. "The Efficacy of Parochial Politics: Caste, Commitment, and Competence in Indian Local Governments," NBER Working Papers 14335, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Owen, Ann L. & Temesvary, Judit, 2018. "The performance effects of gender diversity on bank boards," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 50-63.
    9. Chau, Nancy H. & Qin, Yu & Zhang, Weiwen, 2015. "Networked Leaders in the Shadow of the Market – A Chinese Experiment in Allocating Land Conversion Rights," Working Papers 250022, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    10. Dostie, Benoit & Jayaraman, Rajshri, 2006. "Determinants of School Enrollment in Indian Villages," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 405-421, January.
    11. Astrid Sneyers & Anneleen Vandeplas, 2013. "Girl Power in Agricultural Production: How Much Does it Yield? A Case-Study on the Dairy Sector in India," LICOS Discussion Papers 34113, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    12. Baltrunaite, Audinga & Bello, Piera & Casarico, Alessandra & Profeta, Paola, 2014. "Gender quotas and the quality of politicians," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 62-74.
    13. Jerg Gutmann & Katarzyna Metelska-Szaniawska & Stefan Voigt, 2023. "Leader Characteristics and Constitutional Compliance," Working Papers 2023-11, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    14. Elizabeth Kaletski & Nishith Prakash, 2017. "Can Elected Minority Representatives Affect Health Worker Visits? Evidence from India," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 67-102, February.
    15. Michael L. Anderson & Fangwen Lu, 2017. "Learning to Manage and Managing to Learn: The Effects of Student Leadership Service," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(10), pages 3246-3261, October.
    16. Kahsay, Goytom Abraha & Medhin, Haileselassie, 2020. "Leader turnover and forest management outcomes: Micro-level evidence from Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Tarverdi, Yashar, 2019. "Gender and climate change: Do female parliamentarians make difference?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 151-164.
    18. Joo, Hailey Hayeon & Lee, Jungmin, 2018. "Encountering female politicians," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 88-122.
    19. Alexandre Volle & Antoine Cazals & Bilal El Rafhi, 2023. "Another Wind of Change? Evidence about Political Outsiders in the French Parliament," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 133(2), pages 203-231.
    20. Paul Pelzl & Steven Poelhekke, 2023. "Democratization, leader education and growth: firm-level evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 571-600, December.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctl:louvec:2006042. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Virginie LEBLANC (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.