Isolating the female agency-driven development factor in external sovereign emerging market debt

The underlying literature hypothesises and provides randomised evidence for the positive impact of promoting the broad-based inclusion, empowerment, and representation of women on regional ecosystems. This study seeks to isolate a female agency-driven development factor in external sovereign emerging market debt and finds evidence for superior risk-adjusted returns from tilting towards female agency leaders. We propose the female agency factor as an additional scope in the modern investor’s toolbox of holistic credit assessment, allowing investors to isolate the issuers which are the most effective sovereign transmission mechanisms of sustainable development capital. This contribution to the corpus supports the notion of integrating sustainability factors into portfolio construction and reinforces the argument for supporting female-led development from a financial markets’ perspective.