Gender Quotas in the Board Room and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Credible Threat in Sweden

Björn Tyrefors and Joakim Jansson

No 1165, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Board room quotas have recently received an increasing amount of attention. This paper provides novel evidence on firm performance from an exogenous change in female board participation in Sweden. We use the credible threat, aimed at listed firms, of a quota law enacted by the Swedish deputy prime minister as an exogenous variation. The threat caused a substantial and rapid increase in the share of female board members in firms listed on the Stockholm stock exchange. This increase was accompanied by an increase in different measures of firm performance in the same years, which were related to higher sales and lower labor costs.

Keywords: Gender quotas; Corporate boards; Firm performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G34 G38 J16 J48 J78 M12 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2017-04-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cfn, nep-eff, nep-gen, nep-hrm and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1165

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