We study the effect of corporate board gender quotas on firm performance in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. The empirical analysis is based on accounting panel data from Bureau Van Dijk's Amadeus. Our identification strategy relies on both double and triple difference estimators with ex-ante...

Using quasi-natural experiments, we study how directors’ relative power or influence modulates the effects of board gender diversity. At low levels of influence, female directors have no significant impact on firm risk-taking and financial performance. However, as their influence increases...

This paper examines the gender diversity in corporate boardrooms in Asia and the Pacific and how the diversity affects corporate performance. We find that boardroom gender diversity is low in Asia with 7.5% female representation on average in 2012, but showing a 1.8% improvement in 2013. The...

Board room quotas have recently received an increasing amount of attention. This paper provides novel evidence on firm performance from an exogenous change in female board participation in Sweden. We use the credible threat, aimed at listed firms, of a quota law enacted by the Swedish deputy...

In 2018, California became the first U.S. state to introduce a mandatory board gender quota for all firms headquartered in the state. Even though the constitutionality of the law is still debated, we document large negative announcement returns of -2.6% to the adoption of the gender quota for...

Board room quotas have recently received an increasing amount of attention. This paper provides novel evidence on firm performance from an exogenous change in female board participation in Sweden. We use the credible threat, aimed at listed firms, of a quota law enacted by the Swedish deputy...

Women on corporate boards have been the subject of an abundant literature (theoretical and empirical) in many countries, mainly in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Scandinavian countries. Main results show an average slow progress and relatively low number of women on corporate...

We investigate the relation between board gender diversity and firm profitability using the control function (CF) approach recently suggested by Wooldridge (2015). The CF method takes account of the problem of endogenous explanatory variables that have potential to bias the results. Using a...

Using a large sample of Chinese firms, we examine performance differences between firms with female and male chairs and the channels through which such differences arise. After controlling for the presence of female CEOs and non-chair female directors, we find that chairwoman firms perform...

In order to capture and lead the market, a board should be able to understand and quickly react to the changing global market. The market is very complex and highly segmented according to factors such as gender, age and ethnicity. Therefore, having a diverse board is advantageous because the...