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Board gender diversity and investment inefficiency

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  • Yu, Chang

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of board gender diversity on a firm’s investment inefficiency and finds that a firm with at least one female director on its board has significantly less investment inefficiency than firms without one. The fraction of female directors on the board has a significantly negative association with investment inefficiency. The instrumental variable approach and propensity score matching show that this relation is robust after addressing endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, the effect of board gender diversity on investment inefficiency is more pronounced for overinvestment than underinvestment. Consistently, the effect is more substantial for firms that tend to overinvest ex-ante. It also indicates that board independence is a channel for board gender diversity to reduce investment inefficiency.

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  • Yu, Chang, 2023. "Board gender diversity and investment inefficiency," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jebusi:v:124:y:2023:i:c:s0148619522000637
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconbus.2022.106107
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Board of directors; Gender; Diversity; Investment efficiency; Capital investment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility

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