Legal mandates, information, and political representation of women: Evidence from Gender Quotas in Chile

Last registered on June 03, 2021
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Legal mandates, information, and political representation of women: Evidence from Gender Quotas in Chile
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0007657
Initial registration date
May 13, 2021

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
May 14, 2021, 9:39 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
June 03, 2021, 7:26 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Country
Chile
Region
Región Metropolitana

Primary Investigator

Name
Antonia Paredes Haz
Affiliation
Yale
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2021-05-15
End date
2021-05-16
Keywords
Electoral, Gender, Governance
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
Secondary IDs
Abstract
Over a hundred countries use gender quotas in politics to increase female representation. Yet, when quotas apply only on party candidate lists, parties often strategically respond, resulting in female representation being at the lower end of what is compatible with quotas (Esteve-Volart and Bagues, 2012). This project will exploit an electoral setting in Chile where the party's ability to manipulate the fraction of women elected through candidate choice is limited by law. Using a randomized information campaign, which consists of sending letters to voters from randomly selected voting booths, I will examine whether informing voters about the law to ensure gender parity impacts voter candidate choice and partisan preferences. The aim is to use the findings to evaluate the underlying causes for female under-representation in politics.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Paredes Haz, Antonia. 2021. "Legal mandates, information, and political representation of women: Evidence from Gender Quotas in Chile." AEA RCT Registry. June 03. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.7657-1.1
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Information campaign on a gender quota in Chile delivered to voters before the election.
Intervention Start Date
2021-05-15
Intervention End Date
2021-05-16

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Votes:
- Percentage of votes for women over total votes.
- Percentage of votes for women of the three major coalitions competing.
- Average ability level by gender weighted by percentage of votes. Ability will be measured by test scores for college admissions.
-Percentage of votes for women according to their ranking in the list
-Percentage of invalid votes
-Percentage of votes by coalition
Turnout:
- Percentage of registered voters that voted.
- Percentage of male and female voters that voted.
- Percentage of people by age that voted.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
-Spillovers in other elections happening the same day (percentage of votes for women in elections for governor, mayor, and city council; percentage of invalid votes)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Treatment is randomized among electoral voting booths in all the urban municipalities in the city of Santiago. There are two treatment arms and one control group:
Control group: No intervention
Treatment 1 (T1): Voters in these voting booths will receive a letter with general information about the election and gender parity in candidates.
Treatment 2 (T2): Voters in these voting booths will receive the same letter as voters in T1, plus information about gender parity in elected candidates.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Voting booths
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
336 treated voting booths
Sample size: planned number of observations
12791 voting booths
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Control: 12455 voting booths
T1: 114 voting booths
T2: 222 voting booths
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Yale University Institutional Review Board
IRB Approval Date
2021-03-25
IRB Approval Number
2000030304
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials