Does Gender Explain the Indebtedness Levels of Local Governments?

In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of research analyzing the role of women in public management. This study contributes to this line of research by examining the influence women have on municipal public debt. To this aim, we use a sample of 141 Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants for the period 2008–2020. The empirical results suggest that municipalities that are leaded by a female mayor tend to show lower levels of public debt. In addition, empirical results reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between the proportion of female councilors and the level of public debt. This means that the higher the proportion of female councilors, the lower the level of indebtedness, but this positive effect appears only if the number of female councilors is relatively high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]