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This paper investigates the influence of women in politics on decision-making using public educational expenditures as the outcome of interest. The results suggest that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of educational expenditures to GDP by 0.038 percentage points. I then consider some different contexts, under which the influence of female legislators may be affected. The effect of female legislators on educational policies is robust in the different contexts considered, but the magnitude may change revealing perhaps that the distribution of female legislators depends on the context. Moreover, this study supports the hypothesis that the identity of the legislator matters for policy. To determine whether female legislators have causal impact on education, this paper uses electoral rules as the instrument for the proportion of female legislators. The results are encouraging, and are very likely to provide causal evidence of female legislators on educational expenditures.

The author examined what and how factors affect the employment status of Taiwanese college students with disabilities in the 1st year after graduation. The results demonstrated that (a) perceived acceptance by society and the employment market (ASEM) was the major factor affecting the employment status of individuals with disabilities (IWDs); (b) perceived ASEM influenced IWDs' psychological states, attitudes, and life‐planning styles, as well as their attitudes and strategies in job searching; and (c) the effect of IWDs' acceptance expectations on their employment development can be explained by the self‐fulfilling prophecy.

PurposeGiven that female candidates benefit more from an election based on a proportional representation system as opposed to a plurality system and the extent of corruption may not change much across a crude classification of electoral systems, this study attempts to connect the level of corruption to the proportion of female legislators by introducing the electoral rules as an instrument for the latter variable.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses electoral rules as an instrument for the elected women to clarify the causality of women on corruption since a country with a high number of female legislators may simply have superior economic performance, which may reveal a simultaneous preference for gender equality and clean government. Section 2 describes the relationships between corruption and women. Section 3 provides the empirical specification by first building a channel from the electoral rules to elected women and then investigating the influence of female legislators on the level of corruption. This section also provides a description of the data. Section 4 presents the results of the analysis. Section 5 concludes.FindingsThe results show that having more women in parliament results in more honest government, which is very likely to be causally evident.Originality/valueThis study investigates whether more seats taken by female parliamentarians results in a less corrupt government. While a large and growing body of research on this issue claims that there is a link between a higher level of female representation in government and lower levels of corruption, it is uncertain if a causal relationship can be established. This study attempts to provide evidence by building a channel from electoral rules and gender quotas to the fraction of female legislators, while consequently investigating the impact of female legislators on corruption. Based on the countries contained in this study, the results suggest that the presence of female parliamentarians apparently has a significantly negative effect on the level of corruption, which is very likely to be causally evident.

The thesis consists of three papers, summarized as follows. "Female Policymakers and Educational Expenditures: Cross-Country Evidence" This paper investigates the influence of women in politics on decision-making using public educational expenditures as the outcome of interest. The results suggest that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of educational expenditures to GDP by 0.028 percentage points. The effect of female legislators on educational policies is strengthened accounting for forms of government, but not influenced by left-wing government, electoral rules, parliamentary system and non-marriage. Moreover, this study supports the hypothesis that the identity of the legislator matters for policy. "Women in Politics: A New Instrument for Studying the Impact of Education on Growth" This paper tests the growth model of distance to the technological frontier, which states that an economy closer to the technological frontier should invest more in skilled labor since innovation is a skill-intensive activity. In contrast to Vandenbussche, Aghion, and Meghir (henceforth VAM) (2006), I use the proportion of female legislators as an instrument for skilled labor, instead of lagged educational expenditures. The results with the new instrument are consistent with the theoretical prediction and the previous results of VAM (2006). "Do Gender Quotas Influence Women's Representation and Policies?" This paper investigates the effect of applying gender quotas on policy decisions. The results show that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of government expenditure on health and social welfare to GDP by 0.18 and 0.67 percentage points, respectively. The robustness check supports that the effect of quotas on female legislators is likely to be translated into the influence of female policymakers on social welfare.

This paper investigates the influence of women in politics on decision-making using public educational expenditures as the outcome of interest. The results suggest that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of educational expenditures to GDP by 0.028 percentage points. I then consider some contexts, on which the influence of female legislators may depend. The effect of female legislators on educational policies is strengthened accounting for forms of government, but not influenced by left-wing government, electoral rules, parliamentary system and non-marriage. Moreover, this study supports the hypothesis that the identity of the legislator matters for policy. ; Part of urn:nbn:se:su:diva-8363