Advanced Research on the Role of Gender Differences for Policymaking

CLEMENCE TRICAUD UCLA

While there is evidence of gender differences in leaders’ behavior, less is known about what drives these gaps. This paper uncovers the role of electoral incentives. Using a close election RD design in Brazil, we first show that female mayors handled the COVID-19 crisis differently over the year 2020, which ended with new municipal elections. We find that having a female mayor led to more deaths per capita at the beginning of the pandemic – a period characterized by uncertainty about the severity of the threat – but to fewer deaths per capita later in the year – a period where this uncertainty was reduced. We provide additional evidence that female mayors were less likely to close non-essential businesses early on, and more likely to do so at the end, and that residents in female-led municipalities were more likely to stay at home in the weeks surrounding the election. We then show that these results can be rationalized by a simple political agency model where politicians seek re-election and where voters assess female and male politicians’ actions differently. Consistent with this interpretation, we show that the gender differences we find are driven exclusively by mayors who were not term-limited and thus allowed to run for re-election and that the effects are stronger in municipalities with greater gender discrimination. Taken together, the results suggest that female and male leaders face different electoral incentives and adapt their policy decisions to voters’ gender-biased assessment.

VERONICA GREMBI Sapienza University of Rome

Policy knowledge is a crucial component of democratic accountability. Yet, little is known about whether individuals are knowledgeable of public policies. We investigate general patterns of policy knowledge in the population focusing on the EU’s Resilience and Recovery Plan (RRP), a e723 billion program to mitigate the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a uniquely tailored panel survey, we assess knowledge on both the extensive margin, i.e. whether citizens report being aware of the plan, and the intensive margin, i.e. what do effectively people know about the policy details. We identify substantial heterogeneity across socio-demographic groups. Overall, 62% of respondents report being aware of the RRP, but we detect much lower awareness about the plan’s financial structure and timeline. We uncover a significant and persistent gender-based literacy gap of around 30%. This gap narrows when questions focus on policy reforms likely more pertinent to female voters. Exploiting randomized exposure to the availability of the "I don’t know" option, we show that, albeit important, gender differences in confidence can’t fully explain the difference in knowledge of the financial structure of the plan. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of assessing and addressing gaps in policy knowledge, as they might hinder democratic accountability and policy effectiveness.