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

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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.

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  • Tyrefors, Björn & Jansson, Joakim, 2017. "Gender Quotas in the Board Room and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Credible Threat in Sweden," Working Paper Series 1165, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1165
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    Cited by:

    1. Marianne Bertrand & Sandra E Black & Sissel Jensen & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2019. "Breaking the Glass Ceiling? The Effect of Board Quotas on Female Labour Market Outcomes in Norway," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 86(1), pages 191-239.
    2. Anaïs Périlleux & Ariane Szafarz, 2022. "Women in the boardroom: a bottom–up approach to the trickle-down effect," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1783-1800, April.
    3. Viktor Bozhinov & Christopher Koch & Thorsten Schank, 2019. "The Second Glass Ceiling: Women’s Role in Supervisory Boards of German Firms," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 71(3), pages 385-411, August.
    4. Alexandra Fedorets & Anna Gibert & Norma Burow, 2019. "Gender Quotas in the Boardroom: New Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1810, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Alexandra Fedorets & Anna Gibert, 2022. "Lifting Women Up: Gender Quotas and the Advancement of Women on Corporate Boards," Working Papers 1370, Barcelona School of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender quotas; Corporate boards; Firm performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

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