期刊名称：Discussion Paper Series / Department of Economics, New York University
出版年度：2008
卷号：1
出版社：New York University
摘要：The adoption of mandatory gender quotas in party lists has been a subject of
discussion in many countries. Since any reform obviously requires the approval
of a (sometimes qualified) majority of incumbent legislators¡¯ votes, keeping an
eye on incumbents¡¯ interests and incentives in different systems seems a natural
thing to do if we want to understand different prospects for reforms in different
countries. Such differences in the cost-benefit analysis of incumbents may well
depend on the electoral system. We argue that if male candidates have a higher
probability of being elected when running against a female candidate than when
running against a male of similar characteristics (male advantage), then single
member district majority rule and closed list proportional representation are
opposite extremes in terms of incentives for incumbents to pass parity laws. We
validate the above argument using a formal model of constitutional design as
well as an empirical analysis of the legislative elections in France, since France
offers a natural experiment for both electoral systems. Given the male advantage,
increasing the number of female new candidates made the incumbents¡¯
probability of reelection higher and thus male incumbent members of the Assembly
have actually benefited from the parity law. We also show that parity
may have Assembly composition effects and policy effects that vary with the
electoral system.
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