Gender Diversity in Central Banks: What are the Consequences?

• In Event: The Politics of Central Banking: No more Free Lunches

Abstract

In the past years attention has been given to gender diversity in the leadership of central banks. This diversity is broadly important for the efficiency and creativity of committee based decisions and because women may have different preferences not just on monetary policy, but also on issues like public spending, income distribution or regulation. In this paper we take two approaches to understand the more narrow effects of gender diversity in central banks boards. Using our newly coded data on central bank boards in 114 countries we investigate the effect of gender diversity on outcomes related directly to monetary policy, like inflation, money growth rates, interest rate premia, credit ratings and economic growth. In addition, we also use the gender diversity in United States regional reserve banks to create experimental designs that to try capturing the public trust in information provided by male or female reserve bank presidents.

Authors

• Cristina Bodea, Michigan State University

• Andrew Kerner, Michigan State University