Female policymakers and educational expenditures: cross-country evidence

This paper investigates the influence of women in politics on decision-making using public educational expenditures as the outcome of interest. The results suggest that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of educational expenditures to GDP by 0.038 percentage points. I then consider some different contexts, under which the influence of female legislators may be affected. The effect of female legislators on educational policies is robust in the different contexts considered, but the magnitude may change revealing perhaps that the distribution of female legislators depends on the context. Moreover, this study supports the hypothesis that the identity of the legislator matters for policy. To determine whether female legislators have causal impact on education, this paper uses electoral rules as the instrument for the proportion of female legislators. The results are encouraging, and are very likely to provide causal evidence of female legislators on educational expenditures.