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Paper short abstract

This paper examines whether state capacity delivers inclusive development when women’s property rights remain weak. It shows that state capacity improves growth and education outcomes more strongly where female, not only male, property rights are protected.

Paper long abstract

Despite sustained global commitments to gender equality, women and girls in many low- and middle-income countries continue to face persistent disadvantages in access to education, particularly under conditions of economic stress, conflict, and political uncertainty. This paper argues that gendered property-rights regimes shape whether state capacity can effectively translate into inclusive development outcomes.

The study examines whether the effect of state capacity on economic growth and human capital formation depends on the relative strength of female versus male property rights. Using cross-country panel data covering 1972–2023, the empirical analysis estimates interaction models that allow the growth and education returns to state capacity to vary with gender-disaggregated property rights. Baseline specifications employ country and year fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity, while dynamic panel GMM estimators are used as robustness checks to address potential endogeneity. Education outcomes are examined explicitly as a key human-capital channel linking state capacity to long-run development.

The findings show that state capacity is associated with significantly higher growth and educational returns in countries where female property rights are relatively stronger. By contrast, in male-dominated institutional environments, the developmental effects of state capacity are substantially attenuated, particularly with respect to girls’ access to education. These patterns suggest that even administratively capable states face binding constraints when women lack secure economic rights, limiting household investment in girls’ schooling and weakening the transmission of public policy into human capital formation.

By highlighting when state capacity fails to reach girls, the paper underscores the need for institutional reform.