Many companies in Germany must provide information beyond financial figures in their annual reports. For some years now, legislators have increasingly required information on non-financial aspects, such as the shares of women in leadership positions. Using a quantitative text analysis of annual...

This paper analyzes the determinants of the German corporate governance rating recently developed by Drobetz, Schillhofer, and Zimmermann (2004). We find a non- linear relationship between ownership concentration and the quality of firmlevel corporate governance as measured by the rating. Firms...

For the last two decades, board diversity is increasingly considered as a significant mechanism of good corporate governance. Thus, the question arises whether a heterogeneously or rather a homogenously composed board contributes to the efficiency of a company's management and monitoring....

There was a significant increase in the number of women on executive boards of large companies in Germany from 2020 to 2021 after years of slow progress: In fall 2021, there were 139 women on the executive boards of the 200 largest companies, 38 more than in 2020. This is an increase of a good...

This second report in the DIW Berlin Women Executives Barometer 2022 explores the designs and effects of gender quotas across Europe, coming to the conclusion that they are an effective instrument for increasing the share of women in top positions at large companies. Furthermore, the quotas...

The proportion of women on the boards of large companies in Germany continued to increase during 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, there were 101 female executive board members in the 200 largest companies, seven more than in 2019. However, growth was slow, as it was in some of the other...