Women’s Political Empowerment and Public Spending Efficiency in Developing Countries

This paper examines the effect of women’s political empowerment on public spending efficiency in developing countries. Using a large panel of 126 developing countries over 1995–2021, the paper constructs public spending efficiency scores based on Stochastic Frontier Analysis, capturing governments’ ability to transform public expenditures into socioeconomic outcomes. The analysis employs a fractional regression model with a bootstrap and instrumental variable approach, complemented by alternative identification strategies. The results consistently show that higher levels of women’s political empowerment significantly improve public spending efficiency. These findings remain robust in alternative estimators, additional controls, subsamples, and alternative measures of women’s empowerment. In addition, a transmission channel analysis further reveals that this positive effect operates primarily through improved governance quality, particularly stronger control of corruption, while fiscal capacity and education spending play complementary but less dominant roles. These findings suggest that policies promoting women’s effective participation in political decision-making—beyond symbolic representation—should be integrated into fiscal governance and anti-corruption strategies to improve public sector performance in developing countries.