Gender equality and central bank independence

Abstract

Central bank independence (CBI) is vital for maintaining stable economic expectations. Our work employs a panel of 161 economies during the period 1970–2019 to investigate the relationship between gender equality and CBI. By estimating a two-way fixed-effect model, we find that gender equality improvement promotes CBI. This baseline conclusion is confirmed to be robust to fungible indicators, cross-sectional dependence, and endogenous concern. One of these checks, which has a dynamic model specification, shows that CBI’s effect could last for more than three years. Moreover, a set of extended investigations reveals heterogeneity, whereby the positive effect of gender equality on CBI is more profound in economies where there is less political segmentation of the product market, more existing educational resources, and fewer restrictions on accessing information from freely-expressed media. Based on our findings, relevant suggestions are provided for global investors and development banks.