Quality of government and women's political empowerment: Evidence from European regions

This study examines the relationship between women's political empowerment (WPE) and the quality of government (QoG) in European regions. The analysis considers both the endogeneity of the QoG and female empowerment, and their spatial interdependence. We use exogenous variation in preindustrial societal traits, legal origins, and geographic and climatic characteristics to construct instruments using random forest forecasting. To model interdependence across regions, we employ convex combinations of connectivity matrices based on geography, trade, social networks, and cultural links. Our findings show that WPE raises the QoG, and that the QoG also boosts female empowerment.