We examine how alumni ties with corporate boards differentially affect male and female analysts' job performance and career outcomes. Connections improve analysts' forecasting accuracy and recommendation impact, but the effect is two to three times as large for men as for women. Connections also...

We find that board gender diversity increases the likelihood that firms announce a buy-back but long-term excess returns are signficantly smaller when there is larger female representation on the board. This is consistent with the governance hypothesis: gender diversity makes it more likely that...