Board Gender Diversity and Investment Efficiency: Global Evidence from 83 Country-Level Interventions

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baik, Dave (Young -Il); Chen, Clara Xiaoling; Godsell, David
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826
• DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2022-0251
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 1-36
• 关键词: financial-reporting quality; corporate governance; information quality; forecast quality; capital-market; Audit quality; AGENCY COSTS; firm; performance; DIRECTORS

摘要

We investigate the effect of board gender diversity (BGD) on investment outcomes. We identify variation in BGD by compiling, for the first time, a global catalog of 83 BGD interventions implemented in 59 countries between 1999 and 2021. Using a staggered difference-in-differences research design, we document that BGD interventions improve investment outcomes. We find that treated firms reduce inefficient investment by 0.6 percent of total assets or 6.5 percent of total investment and are 4 percentage points more likely to have above-median investment efficiency. Cross-sectional tests reveal more pronounced results when BGD interventions are mandatory, are strongly enforced, and result in larger BGD increases. Event-time, stacked panel, and a wide variety of endogeneity-mitigating robustness tests corroborate. Our plausibly causal inferences have important implications for both research and practice.