Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance

Luca Flabbi, Mario Macis, Andrea Moro and Fabiano Schivardi

No 1507, Working Papers CELEG from Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli

Abstract: We analyze a matched employer-employee panel data set and find that female leadership has a positive effect on female wages at the top of the distribution, and a negative one at the bottom. Moreover, performance in firms with female leadership increases with the share of female workers. This evidence is consistent with a model where female executives are better equipped at interpreting signals of productivity from female workers. This suggests substantial costs of under-representation of women at the top: for example, if women became CEOs of firms with at least 20% female employment, sales per worker would increase 6.7%.

Keywords: executives’ gender; gender gap; firm performance; glass ceiling; statistical discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J7 M12 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-dem, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Related works:
Journal Article: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2019)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadreship on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2018)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2016)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2015)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2014)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2014)
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