Do large, sustained economic freedom reforms hurt or improve women's economic rights?

Abstract

Does economic freedom come at the expense of women's economic rights, or does it instead help improve them? Presently, there are almost no studies investigating this issue, and what evidence exists is mostly correlational. This paper presents findings from matching analyses with the explicit aim of addressing the likely endogenous relationship between economic freedom and respect for women's economic rights. Using the latest data (up to 2022), estimates from matching methods, as well as supplementary regressions based on conditional mixed-processes, all point to economic freedom having an improving effect. Two components of economic freedom – sound money and freedom of international trade – seem most likely to drive the aggregate result. The uncovered positive aggregate effect is robust to an extensive set of control variables, tweaks in the operationalization of treatment, and varying the post-treatment period.