Chiara Baggetta (p), Anna Bottasso , Gianluca Cerruti, Maurizio Conti

Pablo Casas

This paper examines whether the election of female mayors influences women’s voter turnout in Italian municipalities between 1993 and 2023. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) that exploits close electoral races between male and female candidates, we estimate the causal effect of female political leadership on women’s political participation. The results indicate no significant effect
when considering the full sample. However, in municipalities with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants and in more recent elections, we find that electing a female
mayor increases women’s turnout by approximately 3 percentage points. Robustness checks, including alternative bandwidth selections and placebo tests, confirm the validity of our findings. Additionally, we evidence stronger effects in
municipalities with higher social capital, greater female labour force participation, and in northern Italy. These findings contribute to the literature on gender and political engagement, highlighting the role of local political representation in shaping electoral behaviour and the conditions under which role model effects are more pronounced.

Pablo Casas (p), Tryfonas Christou, Abián García Rodríguez, Tillmann Heidelk, Marie Lalanne, Nicholas Lazarou, Philippe Monfort, Simone Salotti

Simona Iammarino

EU legislation increasingly call for the inclusion of a gender dimension in all EU policies that are suitable to embed such consideration. The commitment of the EU in reducing gender inequality has brought institutions to develop mechanisms that effectively implement this gender dimension in their policies. Cohesion Policy (CP) is one of these interventions that account for a gender dimension in the 2021-2027 programming period. We manage to tag fields of intervention to simulate the impact of CP on gender equality across EU regional labour markets.

This exercise brings novelty from different perspectives, to the best of our knowledge. First, it is the first impact assessment at the EU level on gender equality of a policy which reducing gender inequality is not the main target. Second, this is the first EU impact assessment of a gender-related policy at the regional level. Last, the model used in this analysis constitutes the first spatial computable general equilibrium model targeting EU regions with a gender dimension. In the model, we consider a 10 sectors division in each of the 235 EU NUTS2 regions.

CP increases gender equality across EU labour markets, since it effectively decreases the Gender Ativity Gap, the Gender Employment Gap and the Gender Wage Gap. However, this overall increase in gender equality masks wide regional heterogeneity, with some regions improving their prospects more than others. We dig into these different outcomes in different geographical locations wondering if CP brings convergence on the gender equality situation across EU regional labour markets.

Simona Iammarino (p), Gainbi Park, Rachel Franklin, Sally Hardy, Jessie Poon

Alessandra Faggian

The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic were deep and lasting and the effects on research and researchers have been widely documented. This paper contributes to this literature through an investigation of the gendered and geographic impacts of the pandemic on the five Regional Studies Association (RSA) journals. With the cooperation of Taylor and Francis, the RSA’s journal publisher, we generate a database of manuscripts submitted between January 2018 and December 2022. Employing gender-estimating algorithms and geographic locations of lead authors, we explore overall submission patterns over this 5-year period, as well as trends in final editorial decisions by authorship characteristics, gender, and geography. We find evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily depressed manuscript submissions, with heterogeneous effects depending on journal, continent, and composition of authorship team. We also find strong evidence of persistent gender disparities in submission and acceptance rates that predate the pandemic, and therefore cannot be attributed solely to its effects. These findings reinforce the importance of identifying and effectively tackling persistent inequalities in academic publishing, and highlight that further action may be required in order to ensure equity and inclusivity in academic and research practices.

Alessandra Faggian (p), Martina Dal Molin, Chiara Leggerini

Chiara Baggetta

This research investigates the impact of gender diversity within R&D teams on green innovation across European countries, considering the influence of national gender equality contexts. Among innovation and green innovation studies, the drivers of innovation have been traditionally studied from two main perspectives: firm-level characteristics (Liu, 2024; Zhang et al., 2019) and contextual factors (Zhang & Wang, 2022; Du et al., 2019), while individual and team-level characteristics have been largely overlooked (Chu, 2024; Hemmert et al., 2024; Naveed et al., 2023; Wu et al., 2021). Only recently, in fact, individual characteristics at the team level have begun to attract scholarly attention, particularly regarding the positive impact that gender diversity may have on innovation and green innovation (Hemmert et al., 2024; Liu & Zhu, 2024; Wu et al., 2021). Gender diversity, providing different perspectives and problem-solving approaches due to different by male and female personal traits, can foster idea generation and innovation (Valantine & Collins, 2015; Griffin et al., 2021; Díaz-García et al., 2013; Page, 2007). Moreover, in this research, we also consider gender equality context which, at national or regional levels may stimulate gender diversity within firms (Campopiano et al., 2023; Chizema et al., 2015).
In this research, green innovation is measured using two patent-based indicators: the classification of patents as “green” and their citation count, as a proxy for the quality of green innovation. Gender equality is evaluated using the Global Gender Gap Index. Preliminary results indicate that, while gender diversity within R&D teams generally reduces the likelihood of green innovation, this effect becomes positive in countries with higher levels of gender equality. Specifically, the presence of female inventors is positively linked to the development of high-quality green innovations.