This paper examines the lessons of the interwar period to place current concerns regarding a return to protectionism in historical context, highlighting the unique and one-time changes in voting rights that took place during the period and their relationship with trade policy. A particularly...

We offer a rationale for the decision to extend the franchise to women within a politico-economic model where men are richer than women, women display a higher preference for public goods, and women's disenfranchisement carries a societal cost. We first derive the tax rate chosen by the male...

Greater legal equality between men and women is associated with a narrower gender gap in opportunities and outcomes, fewer female workers in positions of vulnerable employment, and greater political representation for women. While legal equality is on average associated with better outcomes for...

The principal aim of gender mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality by implementing gender as a central component at all levels within the UN system. Previous work has focused on gender mainstreaming as an abstract concept, whereas this paper empirically examines efforts to implement UN...

This paper provides the first global look at how gender discrimination by the law affects women’s economic opportunity and charts the evolution of legal inequalities over five decades. Using the World Bank’s newly constructed Women, Business and the Law database, it documents large and...

Virtually all of the world’s polities have historically excluded most citizens from political power. By 2011, over 70 had taken measures to reverse this exclusion: they adopted candidate quotas and reserved seats for women, ethnic minorities, and/or subordinate racial groups. Though we know a...

We document that existing gender equality indexes do not take into account gender-specific mandatory peace-time conscriptions. This suggests that gender-specific conscription is not considered to be an important gender issue. If an indicator measuring the gender equality of mandatory...

Do states experience more peace under female leadership? We examine this question in the context of Europe over the 15th-20th centuries. We instrument queenly rule using gender of the first born and whether the previous monarchs had a sister. We find that polities led by queens participated in...

The adage that “only Nixon could go to China” suggests hawkish leaders face fewer domestic political barriers to pursuing conciliation with foreign adversaries. We explore how this conventional wisdom intersects with prominent gender stereotypes about women’s role in national security. Do...

This paper traces the origins and early history of perceived gender differences in absenteeism in Great Britain and the USA. Among politicians and scholars, the problem was first articulated during World War I and reappeared as an issue of prime concern during World War II. The war efforts...