Women in Editorial Boards: An Investigation of Female Representation in Top Economic Journals

Seminario Theory-Experimental

Nagore Iriberri

Universidad del Pais Vasco

22-Apr-2024

webinar – 14:30

We study the evolution of female representation in editorial roles for the most important journals in economics since 1960 to 2019. We first document that the share of women in editorial roles has steadily increased over the past 6 decades. Second, we investigate whether this increase is due to an expansion of the sample of qualified female economists, or due to a change in the preference for having women. We find evidence for both using a large database on detailed CVs of more than 40,000 economists. Last, to understand whether there are gender gaps in the probability of being offered and/or of accepting editorial positions, we administer a large-scale survey to the most prominent economists of our profession. We find evidence for the former: women are more likely to be offered editorial roles in the top-5 and general interest journals.