Board Gender Quotas and Outward Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from France

Koray Aktas, Valeria Gattai and Piergiovanna Natale

No 485, Working Papers from University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics

Abstract: We show that board gender quota laws reduce the propensity of French firms to undertake outward foreign direct investment. For this, we use Orbis data for the period 2007–2015 and a difference-in-difference approach. The exogenous increase in the share of women directors decreases the share of foreign subsidiaries by 7 percentage points when the share of women directors is at its highest. The share of foreign subsidiaries is affected by the decrease in the probability of having a foreign subsidiary, which indicates disinvestment. Accordingly, the estimated effects on the number and cost of employees are negative, with no impact on firm performance.

Keywords: Board diversity; Gender quota; Outward foreign direct investment (OFDI); Europe; Women directors. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F23 G30 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45
Date: 2021-12, Revised 2021-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-gen, nep-int, nep-isf and nep-lab
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mib:wpaper:485

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