Women leaders improve environmental outcomes: Evidence from crop fires in India
利用印度选举断点回归设计，发现女性领导人当选显著减少作物火灾和生物质颗粒物排放，尤其在收获季和适宜焚烧的作物区；对旁遮普邦村领导人的调查揭示女性更重视火灾对儿童健康的影响并推动秸秆管理政策。
This paper provides the first plausibly causal evidence that women leaders improve environmental outcomes. Using a close-election regression discontinuity design, we find that the election of a female politician over a male politician decreases crop fire incidence and biomass-related particulate emissions in India. These effects are concentrated during the harvest and post-harvest months in districts that follow fire-suited cropping patterns. To understand mechanisms, we survey 424 male and female village council leaders in Punjab, the Indian state with the highest per capita incidence of crop fires. We find women leaders are more likely to consider crop fires a serious issue, weigh their impacts on child health, support regulations to decrease crop fire incidence, and implement specific crop residue management policies like private residue collection or encouraging crop residue use as fodder.