There is considerable interest in increasing the representation of women on the boards of publicly traded corporations. Currently, only 17 percent of independent directors in the United States are women. In this Closer Look, we examine the pathways that women took to become the first female...

Employing as a quasi-natural experiment an unexpected judgment by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that raised the difficulty of shareholder litigation, we explore the effect of shareholder litigation rights on board gender diversity. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that an...

With the thought that new perspectives often can be helpful in addressing long-standing unresolved questions, this article approaches an analysis of women's roles on corporate boards of directors from the standpoint of crowd theory. Crowd theory — in reality, a group of theories — explains...

Analysis of a global survey of 21,980 firms from 91 countries suggests that the presence of women in corporate leadership positions may improve firm performance. This correlation could reflect either the payoff to nondiscrimination or the fact that women increase a firm's skill diversity....