The Gender Contribution to the Corporate Governance and the Corporate Performance

Firms may have gender differences in governance characteristics, which may lead to differences in the firms' performances themselves, and consequently in the way credit is allocated. The paper demonstrates that there are differences in governance characteristics and, most important, there is a huge difference in the way credit is allocated: it appears that there are more women-led firms which deserve credit, but that do not receive it; furthermore, there is a lower number of women-run firms which are at risk of default. This confirms the analysis of previous papers which claimed that there are differences in the way credit is allocated according to the gender of managers in the firms and that women-led firms are more performing than male ones