Hide and Seek: Female Parliamentarians and the Informal Economy

Abstract

The substantial improvements in the share of women in political offices have had many economic and non-economic implications for the countries, and in turn have motivated researchers to study the various effects of female parliamentarians. In this paper, we aim to explore whether female political representation in national parliaments affects the size of the informal economy, utilizing a multinational panel data with 139 countries over the period from 2002 to 2015. After controlling for a variety of potential factors, we demonstrate that a higher share of women in parliament is associated with a lower level of informality. Moreover, further study shows that the informal economy is more affected by women’s political representation for the countries at the higher end of the conditional informality distribution. Overall, these findings complement existing research, deliver helpful implications for policymakers, and suggest some new lines for future study.