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The Plough, Gender Roles, and Corruption

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  • Hazarika, Gautam

    (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)

Abstract

Cross-national empirical studies of corruption commonly find that nations in which women play a greater role in economic and public life suffer less corruption. This finding has been controversial in that measures of women's participation in the labour force and politics are potentially endogenous. This study uses an aspect of national ancestral geography as an instrumental variable towards estimating the true causal effect of gender upon corruption. The ensuing estimates indicate that ordinary least squares estimates of the coefficients of regressors measuring women's economic and political influ-ence, in regressions in which measured corruption is the dependent variable, are substantially biased.

Suggested Citation

  • Hazarika, Gautam, 2016. "The Plough, Gender Roles, and Corruption," IZA Discussion Papers 10426, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10426
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    Cited by:

    1. Vincenzo Alfano & Salvatore Capasso & Lodovico Santoro, 2023. "Corruption and the political system: some evidence from Italian regions," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 9(2), pages 665-695, July.
    2. Gonzalo F. Forgues‐Puccio & Erven Lauw, 2021. "Gender inequality, corruption, and economic development," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 2133-2156, November.
    3. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Valentina Chiariello & Rita De Siano & Luca Pennacchio, 2025. "Foreign Aid and Corruption: Do Women Make the Difference?," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 11(1), pages 103-151, March.
    4. George R.G. Clarke, 2024. "How robust is the link between gender and corruption: Evidence from firm-level panel data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(4), pages 1281-1290.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    corruption; gender;

    JEL classification:

    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption

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