Do Women Matter in Monetary Policymaking?

30 Pages Posted: 13 Sep 2018

See all articles by Donato Masciandaro

Donato Masciandaro

Bocconi University - Department of Economics; Bocconi University - Department of Economics (ECO)

Paola Profeta

Bocconi University - Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Davide Romelli

Trinity College (Dublin) - Department of Economics; Trinity College (Dublin)

Date Written: September 1, 2018

Abstract

We construct a new dataset on the presence of women on central bank monetary policy committees for a set of 103 countries, over the period 2002-2016. We document an increasing share of women in monetary policy committees, which is mainly associated with a higher overall presence of women in central banks and less so with other institutional factors or country characteristics. We then investigate the impact of this trend on monetary policymaking by estimating Taylor rules augmented to include the share of women on monetary policy committees. We show that central bank boards with a higher proportion of women set higher interest rates for the same level of inflation. This suggests that women board members have a more hawkish approach to monetary policy. We confirm this result by analysing the voting behaviour of members of the executive board of the Swedish Central Bank during the period 2000-2017.

Keywords: Central banks; Monetary Policy Committees; Women on boards; Taylor rule

JEL Classification: E02; E52; E58; J16

Suggested Citation

Masciandaro, Donato and Profeta, Paola and Romelli, Davide, Do Women Matter in Monetary Policymaking? (September 1, 2018). BAFFI CAREFIN Centre Research Paper No. 2018-88, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3248310 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3248310

Donato Masciandaro (Contact Author)

Bocconi University - Department of Economics ( email )

Via Gobbi 5
Milan, 20136
Italy

Bocconi University - Department of Economics (ECO) ( email )

Via Gobbi 5
Milan, 20136
Italy

Paola Profeta

Bocconi University - Department of Policy Analysis and Public Management ( email )

Via Roentgen 1
Milan, 20136
Italy

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

Davide Romelli

Trinity College (Dublin) - Department of Economics ( email )

Arts Building
Room 3014
Dublin
Ireland

Trinity College (Dublin) ( email )

2-3 College Green
Dublin, Leinster D2
Ireland

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
284
Abstract Views
2,172
Rank
195,696
PlumX Metrics