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Gender Quotas and Support for Women in Board Elections

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  • Marina Gertsberg
  • Johanna Mollerstrom
  • Michaela Pagel

Abstract

We study shareholder support for corporate board nominees before and after the 2018 California gender quota. Pre-quota, new female nominees received greater support than new male nominees, consistent with women being held to a higher standard. Post-quota, as the number of women increased, support for new (mandated) female nominees decreased to the same level of, but not lower than, the support that new male nominees enjoy. Still, share prices reacted negatively to the quota. We show that this reaction was concentrated in firms that did not turn over their least-supported male directors when adding women to comply with the quota.

Suggested Citation

  • Marina Gertsberg & Johanna Mollerstrom & Michaela Pagel, 2021. "Gender Quotas and Support for Women in Board Elections," NBER Working Papers 28463, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28463
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. David A. Matsa & Amalia R. Miller, 2013. "A Female Style in Corporate Leadership? Evidence from Quotas," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 136-169, July.
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    6. 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.
    7. Vyacheslav Fos & Kai Li & Margarita Tsoutsoura, 2018. "Do Director Elections Matter?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(4), pages 1499-1531.
    8. Aggarwal, Reena & Dahiya, Sandeep & Prabhala, Nagpurnanand R., 2019. "The power of shareholder votes: Evidence from uncontested director elections," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 134-153.
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    10. Felix von Meyerinck & Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi & Markus Schmid & Steven Davidoff Solomon, 2019. "As California goes, so goes the nation? Board gender quotas and the legislation of non-economic values," Working Papers on Finance 1904, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Dec 2019.
    11. Kenneth R. Ahern & Amy K. Dittmar, 2012. "The Changing of the Boards: The Impact on Firm Valuation of Mandated Female Board Representation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 137-197.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gormley, Todd A. & Gupta, Vishal K. & Matsa, David A. & Mortal, Sandra C. & Yang, Lukai, 2023. "The Big Three and board gender diversity: The effectiveness of shareholder voice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(2), pages 323-348.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

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