We examine the effects of diversity in the board of directors on corporate policies and risk. Using a multi-dimensional measure, we find that greater board diversity leads to lower volatility and better performance. The lower risk levels are largely due to diverse boards adopting more persistent...

This paper studies how corporate board diversity affects disruptive innovation. We find that director boards with diverse demographic and cognitive traits are positively related to not only the quantity of disruptive and novel patents invented by their firms but also to these patents’...