Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17904
Authors: Juan Pablo Chauvin; Clemence Tricaud
Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on why men and women leaders make different choices. We first use a simple political agency model to illustrate how voters' gender bias can lead reelection-seeking female politicians to undertake different policies. We then test the model's predictions by exploring leaders’ responses to COVID-19. Assuming that voters expect policies to be less effective if decided by women, the model predicts that female politicians undertake less containment effort than male politicians when voters perceive the threat as low, while the opposite is true when voters perceive it as serious. Exploiting Brazilian close elections, we find that, early in the pandemic, female mayors were less likely to close non-essential businesses and female-led municipalities experienced more deaths per capita, while the reverse was true later on, once the health consequences materialized. These results are exclusively driven by mayors facing reelection and stronger in municipalities with greater gender discrimination.
Keywords: gender; electoral incentives; COVID-19; political agency model; Brazil
JEL Codes: D72; J16; H11
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Perceived threat of COVID-19 (E71) | containment effort by female mayors (H84) |
| Electoral incentives and gender discrimination (J79) | responses of female mayors (J16) |
| Female mayors (J16) | COVID-19 deaths per 10,000 inhabitants (Y10) |
| Female mayors (J16) | closure of nonessential businesses (J65) |