Researcher ORCID Identifier
0009-0002-7264-6663
Graduation Year
2023
Date of Submission
4-2023
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Award
Robert Day School Prize for Best Senior Thesis in Economics and Finance
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
Cameron Shelton
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
2023 Viola Hernandez-Derbez
Abstract
We analyze the effect of a legislative candidate quota on the quality of congresspeople elected. We study a landmark legislation passed in 2014 in Mexico that required all parties to have an equal number of male and female congressional candidates. We observe a 31% increase in number of bills proposed in legislative sessions after the quota and a significantly higher likelihood for greater educational attainment among male and female deputies alike, controlling for an array of factors that could influence our quality measures. Since not all states had the same level of female representation when the quota was introduced, we identify how the quota impacted quality between high-treatment and low-treatment states. We find that the gender quota increased the number of high-quality female congresswomen the most in states that were farther from reaching the 50-50 ratio, leading us to believe that there was a cultural change caused by the implementation of gender quotas that explains the rise in bills proposed and published among deputies.
Recommended Citation
Hernandez-Derbez, Viola, "Raising the Bar: The Impact of Gender Quotas on Legislator Quality" (2023). CMC Senior Theses. 3289.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/3289
