Leadership roles in banking remain dominated by men; only about one in six bank board members is female. Connections among board members can improve firm performance, but women on boards are much less connected than men. In this paper, we study how gender relates to the role of connections: how...

Greater gender diversity on bank board of directors is associated with higher compensation inequality because CEOs at these banks have higher base salary. This effect disappears during the financial crisis, largely due to adjustment of non-salary compensation

This paper examines the issue of board diversity and the role of women in the finance industry. Estimation of panel data regressions for a sample of all financial institutions in Canada and the US over the period 2008-2019 identified some qualitative and quantitative factors that allowed the...

This study examines the implications of CEO power on the board structure of banks in the Ghanaian banking industry. Using a unique hand-collected dataset in respect of 21 commercial banks in Ghana for the 2009 – 2017 periods, the results show that CEO power underscores the absence or lack of...

We study the impact of a 2011 law on the diversity of bank boards. The law required all listed companies in Italy (including banks) to increase the share of female representatives on their boards up to one third of total seats. We look at listed banks (the ones directly targeted by the law), but...

Previous literature has shown mixed results on the role of female participation on bank boards and bank performance: some papers find that more women on boards enhance financial performance, while others find negative or no effects. Applying Instrumental Variables methods to data on...

We examine the relationship between female board representation and the cost of lending, using a dataset that contains 13,714 loans originated by 386 banks matched with 2,432 non-financial firms over the period 1999 to 2013. We find that firms with female directors command lower loan spreads. In...

Using a sample of 469 banks from 39 countries between 2008 and 2017 and a generalized difference-in-differences methodology, we show that board gender quota laws lead to increased female board representation. We find an increase in risk taking and systemic risk and worse long-run operating...

This paper investigates whether and how differently performance of Islamic banks is affected when female directors sit in the board. We study a unique sample of 1,528 observations on 71 Islamic banks and 120 conventional banks operating in eleven Muslim countries over 2010-2017 period. We find...