robert holzmann governor oesterreichische nationalbank introductory remarks 48th oenb economics conference may 20, 2021 gender, money and finance 48th oenb economics conference of the oesterreichische nationalbank in cooperation with suerf – the european money and finance forum and the joint vienna institute ( jvi ). good afternoon everyone! 1 it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the first session of this year ’ s suerf - jvi - oenb joint conference on gender, money and finance. i am particularly thankful to the two highly distinguished panelists who have agreed to join me today for this first session on the topic of gender and economic policy - making. i could hardly imagine any more suitable, outstanding candidates and role models for this panel. hence, i am both very happy and very honored to be able to welcome christine lagarde, president of the european central bank, and kristalina georgieva, managing director of the international monetary fund as panelists to this first session. our session ’ s title, gender and economic policy - making, seems to be an appropriate starting point for contextualizing the topic we will discuss on this panel. in fact, the title itself may suggest a unidirectional focus of this session on the range of effects gender can have on economic policymaking, including both policy deliberations and policy decisions. yet, the impact of economic policy - making on gender diversity and gender parity across the entire universe of socioeconomic and political dimensions certainly constitutes a second, equally valid perspective on our topic today. in her recent book, gender equality and public policy, prof paola profeta ( who will take part as a panelist in session 2 of this conference ), fittingly describes these two perspectives as the political economy angle and the public economics view of the link between gender and economic policy - making respectively. i would like to thank kilian rieder for his contributions to this speech. for citation, only the spoken version of this speech is relevant ( please check against delivery ). verlegerin und herausgeberin : oesterreichische nationalbank referat pressestelle 1090 wien, otto - wagner - platz 3 postfach 61, 1010 wien starting with the political economy aspect of our session, let me give you one concrete example for why gender matters for economic policy - making, and why increased gender diversity can have substantial positive economic effects by boosting the quality

difficult to predict the precise effects of increasing gender parity on economic policy outcomes, it is important to emphasize what they share in common : none of them constitutes a cogent argument for advocating against more gender diversity. when you think about it, we constantly take policy decisions based on strong theoretical underpinnings and analogical empirical reasoning rather than precise causal estimates of the policy at hand see gerling et al. ( 2005 ) for a summary of condorcet ’ s jury theorem and an extensive survey on group decision - making. see rieder ( 2021 ) for a discussion of this point in the context of monetary policy decision - making. 4 see profeta ( 2020 ), in particular chapter 5, for an excellent summary of relevant research on this topic. 5 experimental research on these topics abounds. profeta ( 2020 ), in particular chapter 5, summarizes the main contributions to the field. some examples are as follows. for altruism, c. f. andreoni and vesterlund ( 2001 ) ; for risk aversion c. f. eckel and grossman ( 2008 ) ; and for negotiation strategies, c. f. small et al. ( 2007 ). 6 see profeta ( 2020 ), chapter 5 for a detailed discussion of the empirical challenges involved in identifying the causal effect of gender on behaviour and policies. and, to be sure, monetary policy is no exception here. i think the time is more than ripe to apply the same standards when it comes to pushing for more gender parity. this brings me to the public economics view on the link between gender and economic policymaking. the reason why economic policy - making needs to play an active role in enhancing gender parity - and here i refer to gender parity in more general terms, beyond the mere composition of decision - making bodies - is certainly not limited to the “ benefit of the doubt ” type argument mentioned above. research has shown that gender inequality and gender gaps around the world often depend on nurture, rather than only nature. 7 persistent stereotypes are known to lock in inefficient equilibria due to path dependence and the intergenerational transmission of certain cultural values. 8 moreover, status quo bias can prevent even very highly qualified women 9 from ascending the ranks, and this rings particularly true for economic policy decision - making bodies. 10 hence, if we value an increase in gender diversity, and, as i have argued, there are good reasons