The effects of gender political inclusion and democracy on environmental performance: evidence from the method of moments by quantile regression

Motivated by the difficulty of ensuring gender equality and the chaotic state of democracy, we analyze the effects of gender political inclusion and democracy on environmental policy performance. The study uses a panel of 45 African countries over the period 2012-2018 and employs the method of moments by quantile regression. The results show that, gender political inclusion and democracy positively affect environmental performance in all quantiles. These positive effects tend to be stronger at higher quantiles. The magnitude is larger for gender political inclusion. When performance is decomposed into the sub-indices of environmental health and ecosystem vitality, positive effects of gender political inclusion and democracy are observed in all quantiles. The effects are larger for the gender dimension than for the democracy dimension, regardless of the sub-index used.