Gender and climate change: Do female parliamentarians make difference?

This paper investigates whether female political representation in national parliaments influences climate change policy outcomes. Based on data from a large sample of countries, we demonstrate that female representation leads countries to adopt more stringent climate change policies. We exploit a combination of full and partial identification approaches to suggest that this relationship is likely to be causal. Moreover, we show that through its effect on the stringency of climate change policies, the representation of females in parliament results in lower carbon dioxide emissions. Female political representation may be an underutilized tool for addressing climate change

Governance, democracy and development

While it is obvious that the level of democracy will affect the quality of governance, we show that an electoral democracy should not be expected to have an improved level of governance when compared with an outright authoritarian regime. We use the term ‘electoral democracy’ to refer to where relatively free and fair elections are held (where opposition parties stand some chance of winning government) but the institutions of a liberal society (like freedom of the press) are not in place. Given this, we consider what level of democracy is necessary before we can expect it to have a positive effect upon governance. We employ a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to construct a new governance indicator. Using the data from over one hundred countries and advanced panel data analysis for the period 1996–2012, our results confirm that political freedom and civil rights influence the level of governance, but this effect is found to be nonlinear. Governance is typically higher in dictatorships than in countries that are partially democratised (electoral democracies). However, once past a threshold, democratic practices assist good governance. Furthermore, it is found that democracy substantially strengthens levels of governance only within the top-half of the conditional distribution

Inflation in Iran: An Empirical Assessment of the Key Determinants

Purpose: To study the key determinants of chronically high inflation in Iran.Design/Methodology/Approach: Relying on annual data from 1978 to 2019, we employ an Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) and Error Correction Model (ECM) to study the inflationary effects of monetary and fiscal policies as well as exchange rate swings and sanctions intensification.Findings: We find that increase in money supply, depreciation of nominal exchange rate, increase in fiscal deficit, and intensification of sanctions are among the key drivers of inflation in Iran. Their impact is profound in the long run, but in the short run only money supply and currency depreciation are significant. Also, when exploring the inflation in different components of Consumer Price Index (CPI), we find robust long- and short-run effects from money supply and exchange rate, while the effects of fiscal deficit and sanctions vary across different components.Originality/Value: We contribute to the literature by setting apart the long- vs. short-run effects of key variables on inflation in Iran. We also employ improved measures of fiscal deficit and sanctions that are shown to be of significance in the long run. Lastly, we go beyond the aggregate index and examine the variations in different CPI components.Yes© Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Publishing Limited. DOI: 10.1108/JES-07-2022-0370. This author accepted manuscript (AAM) is provided for your own personal use only. It may not be used for resale, reprinting, systematic distribution, emailing, or for any other commercial purpose without the permission of the publisher

Talking in the present, caring for the future: Language and environment

This paper identifies a new source that explains environmental behaviour: the presence of future tense marking in language. We predict that languages that grammatically mark the future affect speakers' intertemporal preferences and thereby reduce their willingness to address environmental problems. We first show that speakers of languages with future tense marking are less likely to adopt environmentally responsible behaviours and to support policies to prevent environmental damage. We then document that this effect holds across countries: future tense marking is an important determinant of climate change policies and global environmental cooperation. The results suggest that there may be deep and surprising obstacles for attempts to address climate change

Aspects of Governance and CO2 Emissions: A Non-linear Panel Data Analysis

The reduction of CO2 emissions has been at the centre of worldwide debates on environmental issues, though its inclusion as one of the millennium development goals (MDGs) by the United Nations has changed the focus of relative literature. Among many, one of the World Bank’s “recipes” to achieve a higher position toward MDGs has been to undertake reforms for a better governance. While, the majority of researches’ focus has been on one single aspect and its relationship with the environment, some studies, have simultaneously considered two governance dimensions. In this paper, we focus on the role of several aspects of governance on CO2emissions. This provides us with a chance to explore the possible impacts of all aspects of governance on a more direct measure of emissions that is different to previous researches which have focused on the indirect transmission and considered the maximum of two. Using the IV method within panel data analysis, we show that only one single aspect of governance, Control of Corruption, has a negative significant effect on CO2emissions and its effect has a non-linear relationship. The non-linearity exists in both parametric and nonparametric analysis after controlling for endogeneity

Oil and Women: A Re-examination

In a seminal article, Ross (2008) reports a negative correlation between oil production and women’s representation in the labour force and politics across countries. This article re-examines these relationships exploiting variations in oil endowments to address endogeneity concerns. We confirm that oil production causes decline in women’s representation. Additionally we show that, consistent with Dutch disease effects, oil production decreases women’s employment in the traded sector. However, it also leads to an increase in women’s employment in the nontraded sector. We explore some social consequences of oil production and show that it results in women marrying earlier and having more children

On the role of governance and health aid on child mortality: a cross-country analysis

Globally, child mortality rates continue to be unacceptably high despite improvement in child health outcomes. The role of macro level indicators, such as governance and health aid on child mortality, remains under-researched. The aim of this article is to analyse the influence of governance and health aid on child mortality using cross-country data. A negative association between governance and the mortality rate of children less than 5 years of age was found using System Generalised Method of Moments Dynamic Panel, the linkage also exists in the results of quantile and semi-parametric regression. However, as in other literature, the role of health aid on child mortality remains ambiguou

Self-assessed vs. statistical evidence of racial discrimination: The case of indigenous Australians

This paper provides new insights on the labour market discrimination faced by indigenous Australians - one of the most disadvantaged indigenous populations in developed countries. Combining two large, nationally-representative datasets, we decompose the employment gap between indigenous and non-indigenous populations as of 2014-2015, and show that differences in characteristics between the two groups account for only 43% of the employment gap for females, and 23% of the gap for males. We then demonstrate that statistical measures are positively related to discrimination reports of females and negatively related to discrimination reports of males. Our findings underscore the importance of improving transparency in employment processes for addressing the issue of disadvantage of racial minorities