Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance, and the Stock Market

Giulia Ferrari, Valeria Ferraro, Paola Profeta and Chiara Pronzato

No 6084, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: In 2011, Italy introduced gender quotas for boards of directors of companies listed on its stock market. Comparing before and after the reform within firms, we find that quotas are associated with a higher share of female board directors, higher levels of education of board members, and a lower share of older members. We then use the reform period as an instrument for the share of female directors and find no significant impact on firms’ performance. Interestingly, we find that the share of female directors is associated with a lower variability of stock market prices. We also run event studies on the stock price reaction to the introduction of gender quotas. A positive effect of the quota law on stock market returns emerges at the date of the board’s election. Our results are consistent with gender quotas giving rise to a beneficial restructuring of the board, which is positively received by the market.

Keywords: education; age; financial markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J20 J48 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp6084.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance, and the Stock Market (2017)
Working Paper: Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance and the Stock Market (2016)
Working Paper: Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance, and the Stock Market (2016)
Working Paper: Gender Quotas: Challenging the Boards, Performance, and the Stock Market (2016)
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:ces:ceswps:_6084

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().