A Difficulty in the Concept of Affirmative Action: Evidence from Females in Legislatures

Abstract:     
History’s societies vary on a number of dimensions, but appear more homogenous in distributing socioeconomic status across sexes. This homogeneity begs the question of whether forces that are robust to laws and regulations might contribute to the persistence of sex-differences in hierarchical attainment. We take up this question by empirically evaluating Suzanne Scotchmer’s (2008) model of sex differences in risk aversion where (1) winner-take-all games (e.g., promotions in hierarchies) favor male risk takers, but (2) successful females maintain greater skill on average, and (3) this skill-advantage depreciates with repeated play. We find support for these implications in how the sex composition of national legislatures differs across electoral mechanisms (i.e., majoritarian chambers employ a significantly greater proportion of males) and how re-election prospects for US Representatives differ by sex (i.e., females enjoy significantly longer durations, but only when evaluated early in their incumbency). These results cannot easily be dismissed as statistical artifacts, and alternative models can (at best) rationalize our cross-sectional or time series results, but not both. Finally, these results are consistent with a normative aspect of Scotchmer’s model where, rather than presenting societies with a choice between equity and efficiency, questions about affirmative action may offer a choice between policies that necessarily lack internal consistency while creating risks for economic performance.

Keywords: Winner-take-all games, endogenous preference formation, risk aversion, electoral rules, female representation in legislatures, affirmative action, corporate law

JEL Classifications: B52, D72, J16, J71, J78

Working Paper Series