The asymmetric impacts of political shocks on gender development in Türkiye

English (OpenAlex)

Abstract This study analyzes how global uncertainty, geopolitical risk, and subnational corruption shocks affect gender development for a dataset covering 12 Turkish regions at the NUTS-1 level from 2000 to 2022. We employ a panel Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) to capture the asymmetric short- and long-run dynamics between political shocks and gender-sensitive development outcomes. We also apply bounds tests, the Wald test, the CUSUM-of-squares test, and dynamic multiplier graphs to evaluate cointegration, asymmetry, and parameter stability. The results show that political shocks have an asymmetric impact on development. According to the results, a reduction in global uncertainty has a more substantial and positive impact on development. Geopolitical risks are associated with adverse development outcomes across different shock directions. The corruption-related findings are partially consistent with the “grease-the-wheels” hypothesis in regions with weaker administrative capacity. Gender development displays higher sensitivity to political shocks than overall development. To avoid ineffective or regressive development policies, policymakers should consider these asymmetric impacts in their policy designs, aligning short-run stabilization efforts with long-run institutional transformation.