Executive gender and capital structure: New evidence from rebalancing events

Karolina Krystyniak and Viktoriya Staneva

Finance Research Letters, 2024, vol. 65, issue C

Abstract: Existing literature shows that female-led companies exhibit lower leverage compared to their male-led counterparts, a trend frequently attributed to the traditional view of higher risk aversion among women. We explore firms with female CFOs at or close to their optimal leverage and find that their capital structure is no different than that of firms with male CFOs. We argue that female CFOs reveal their true preferences and risk appetite during significant capital structure adjustments and find that their tolerance for risk aligns closely with that of their male counterparts. Our study challenges the conventional narrative by demonstrating that the financing decisions of top executives are likely not influenced by gender-based psychological differences.

Keywords: Gender diversity; Risk aversion; Female CFO; Female CEO; Capital structure; Leverage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 G41 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612324005506
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finlet:v:65:y:2024:i:c:s1544612324005506

DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2024.105520

Access Statistics for this article

Finance Research Letters is currently edited by R. Gençay

More articles in Finance Research Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().