The Influence of Politicians’ Sex on Political Budget Cycles: An Empirical Analysis of Spanish Municipalities

Does a politician’s sex influence political budget cycles (PBCs)? We answer this question using a sample of Spanish municipalities from the Madrid region for the period 2010−2019. The Madrid region has a homogenous set of budget rules that allows consistently categorising budget expenditure items as either ‘mandatory’ or ‘non-mandatory’ public services. After differentiating between smaller and larger municipalities, gender influence is studied along two dimensions: mayor’s sex and share of women in government. Our findings include, in regard to mandatory spending in smaller municipalities, that gender-balanced governments induce PBCs. In larger municipalities, when the share of women in government is above 60%, electoral spending is increased by up to 10% of an average municipal budget for mandatory spending, and up to 2.2% for non-mandatory. These findings are generally supported in a mixed-gender close election analysis.