IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/glofin/v65y2025ics1044028325000353.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does executive gender matter for corporate financial policies under uncertainty?

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Yanyan
  • Cheng, Liubing

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of CEO/CFO gender on corporate financial policies under uncertainty, including cash holdings, corporate investment, debt financing, and payout ratio. Using a sample of Chinese firms from 1999 to 2021, we find that during periods of high uncertainty, firms with female CEOs/CFOs do not exhibit greater risk aversion than those with male counterparts in financial activities. These findings persist even in firms with higher financial constraints or lower risk preferences. Our results remain robust when addressing model specification and endogeneity issues, controlling for other corporate financial behaviors and more executive characteristics, using alternative measures of uncertainty and corporate financial policies, and conducting sub-sample analysis. Overall, our findings suggest that gender differences in risk preferences might vanish in top management.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Yanyan & Cheng, Liubing, 2025. "Does executive gender matter for corporate financial policies under uncertainty?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:glofin:v:65:y:2025:i:c:s1044028325000353
    DOI: 10.1016/j.gfj.2025.101108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1044028325000353
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.gfj.2025.101108?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    2. Kim, Olivia S., 2019. "Does Political Uncertainty Increase External Financing Costs? Measuring the Electoral Premium in Syndicated Lending," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(5), pages 2141-2178, October.
    3. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    4. Thomas W. Bates & Kathleen M. Kahle & René M. Stulz, 2009. "Why Do U.S. Firms Hold So Much More Cash than They Used To?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(5), pages 1985-2021, October.
    5. 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.
    6. Sanyun Zeng & Lihong Wang, 2015. "CEO gender and corporate cash holdings. Are female CEOs more conservative?," Asia-Pacific Journal of Accounting & Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 449-474, December.
    7. Çolak, Gönül & Gungoraydinoglu, Ali & Öztekin, Özde, 2018. "Global leverage adjustments, uncertainty, and country institutional strength," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 41-56.
    8. Wang, Yizhong & Chen, Carl R. & Huang, Ying Sophie, 2014. "Economic policy uncertainty and corporate investment: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 227-243.
    9. Pástor, Ľuboš & Veronesi, Pietro, 2013. "Political uncertainty and risk premia," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 520-545.
    10. Çolak, Gönül & Durnev, Art & Qian, Yiming, 2017. "Political Uncertainty and IPO Activity: Evidence from U.S. Gubernatorial Elections," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(6), pages 2523-2564, December.
    11. Dario Caldara & Matteo Iacoviello, 2022. "Measuring Geopolitical Risk," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1194-1225, April.
    12. Ernest Gyapong & Ammad Ahmed & Collins G Ntim & Muhammad Nadeem, 2021. "Board gender diversity and dividend policy in Australian listed firms: the effect of ownership concentration," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 603-643, June.
    13. Renée B. Adams & Patricia Funk, 2012. "Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Does Gender Matter?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 219-235, February.
    14. Bialkowski, Jedrzej & Gottschalk, Katrin & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2008. "Stock market volatility around national elections," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1941-1953, September.
    15. García Lara, Juan Manuel & García Osma, Beatriz & Mora, Araceli & Scapin, Mariano, 2017. "The monitoring role of female directors over accounting quality," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 651-668.
    16. Li, Yiwei & Zeng, Yeqin, 2019. "The impact of top executive gender on asset prices: Evidence from stock price crash risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 528-550.
    17. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    18. Berger, Allen N. & Kick, Thomas & Schaeck, Klaus, 2014. "Executive board composition and bank risk taking," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    19. Ben S. Bernanke, 1983. "Irreversibility, Uncertainty, and Cyclical Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(1), pages 85-106.
    20. Alessandro Bucciol & Raffaele Miniaci, 2011. "Household Portfolios and Implicit Risk Preference," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1235-1250, November.
    21. Chen, Shaojian & Mao, Hui & Feng, Zongxian, 2020. "Political uncertainty and firm entry: Evidence from Chinese manufacturing industries," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 16-30.
    22. Brandon Julio & Youngsuk Yook, 2012. "Political Uncertainty and Corporate Investment Cycles," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 45-84, February.
    23. Jonathan Brogaard & Andrew Detzel, 2015. "The Asset-Pricing Implications of Government Economic Policy Uncertainty," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(1), pages 3-18, January.
    24. Han, Haozhe & Wang, Xingjian, 2023. "Monetary policy uncertainty and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    25. Guangyong Lei & Wenzhong Wang & Mo Liu, 2015. "Political uncertainty, dividend policy adjustments and market effects," China Journal of Accounting Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(1), pages 49-83, January.
    26. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    27. An, Heng & Chen, Yanyan & Luo, Danglun & Zhang, Ting, 2016. "Political uncertainty and corporate investment: Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 174-189.
    28. Lee, Bong Soo & Mauck, Nathan, 2016. "Dividend initiations, increases and idiosyncratic volatility," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 47-60.
    29. Doan, Trang & Iskandar-Datta, Mai, 2020. "Are female top executives more risk-averse or more ethical? Evidence from corporate cash holdings policy," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 161-176.
    30. Gungoraydinoglu, Ali & Çolak, Gönül & Öztekin, Özde, 2017. "Political environment, financial intermediation costs, and financing patterns," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 167-192.
    31. Florackis, Chris & Fu, Xi & Wang, Jingjing, 2023. "Political connections, environmental violations and punishment: Evidence from heavily polluting firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    32. Chen, Yanyan, 2022. "Does political turnover affect corporate investment? Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PA).
    33. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    34. Huang, Jiekun & Kisgen, Darren J., 2013. "Gender and corporate finance: Are male executives overconfident relative to female executives?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 822-839.
    35. Tao Huang & Fei Wu & Jin Yu & Bohui Zhang, 2015. "Political risk and dividend policy: Evidence from international political crises," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 46(5), pages 574-595, June.
    36. Faccio, Mara & Marchica, Maria-Teresa & Mura, Roberto, 2016. "CEO gender, corporate risk-taking, and the efficiency of capital allocation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 193-209.
    37. Heeney, Luke & Yang, Shanelle & Chowdhury, Hasibul & Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng, 2023. "Corporate cash holdings through economic policy uncertainty: An Australian study," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    38. Nguyen, Thi Hong Hanh & Ntim, Collins G. & Malagila, John K., 2020. "Women on corporate boards and corporate financial and non-financial performance: A systematic literature review and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    39. Bradley, Daniel & Pantzalis, Christos & Yuan, Xiaojing, 2016. "Policy risk, corporate political strategies, and the cost of debt," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 254-275.
    40. Bill Francis & Iftekhar Hasan & Jong Chool Park & Qiang Wu, 2015. "Gender Differences in Financial Reporting Decision Making: Evidence from Accounting Conservatism," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 1285-1318, September.
    41. Levi, Maurice & Li, Kai & Zhang, Feng, 2014. "Director gender and mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 185-200.
    42. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    43. Zhang, Guangli & Han, Jianlei & Pan, Zheyao & Huang, Haozhi, 2015. "Economic policy uncertainty and capital structure choice: Evidence from China," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 439-457.
    44. Demir, Ender & Ersan, Oguz, 2017. "Economic policy uncertainty and cash holdings: Evidence from BRIC countries," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 189-200.
    45. Sila, Vathunyoo & Gonzalez, Angelica & Hagendorff, Jens, 2016. "Women on board: Does boardroom gender diversity affect firm risk?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 26-53.
    46. Berkman, Henk & Jacobsen, Ben & Lee, John B., 2011. "Time-varying rare disaster risk and stock returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(2), pages 313-332, August.
    47. Waisman, Maya & Ye, Pengfei & Zhu, Yun, 2015. "The effect of political uncertainty on the cost of corporate debt," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 106-117.
    48. Schopohl, Lisa & Urquhart, Andrew & Zhang, Hanxiong, 2021. "Female CFOs, leverage and the moderating role of board diversity and CEO power," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    49. El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Mansi, Sattar & Wang, He (Helen), 2023. "Economic policy uncertainty, institutional environments, and corporate cash holdings," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    50. Ahmed A. Sarhan & Collins G. Ntim & Basil Al‐Najjar, 2019. "Board diversity, corporate governance, corporate performance, and executive pay," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 761-786, April.
    51. Maria Boutchkova & Hitesh Doshi & Art Durnev & Alexander Molchanov, 2012. "Precarious Politics and Return Volatility," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(4), pages 1111-1154.
    52. Alaa Mansour Zalata & Collins G. Ntim & Mostafa Hussien Alsohagy & John Malagila, 2022. "Gender diversity and earnings management: the case of female directors with financial background," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 101-136, January.
    53. Huseyin Gulen & Mihai Ion, 2016. "Editor's Choice Policy Uncertainty and Corporate Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 523-564.
    54. Steven N. Kaplan & Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Do Investment-Cash Flow Sensitivities Provide Useful Measures of Financing Constraints?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 169-215.
    55. Laura A. Wellman, 2017. "Mitigating political uncertainty," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 217-250, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Yanyan, 2022. "Does political turnover affect corporate investment? Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(PA).
    2. Peng, Daoju & Colak, Gonul & Shen, Jianfu, 2023. "Lean against the wind: The effect of policy uncertainty on a firm's corporate social responsibility strategy," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    3. Drobetz, Wolfgang & El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Janzen, Malte, 2018. "Policy uncertainty, investment, and the cost of capital," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 28-45.
    4. Shabir, Mohsin & Jiang, Ping & Bakhsh, Satar & Zhao, Zhongxiu, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and bank stability: Threshold effect of institutional quality and competition," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Kiosses, Nikolaos & Leventis, Stergios & Subeniotis, Demetres & Tampakoudis, Ioannis, 2025. "The impact of policy uncertainty on shareholder wealth: Evidence from bank M&A," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    6. Cheng, Mengyao, 2022. "Legislative gridlock and stock return dispersion around roll-call votes," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    7. Colak, Gonul & Gounopoulos, Dimitrios & Loukopoulos, Panagiotis & Loukopoulos, Georgios, 2021. "Political power, local policy uncertainty and IPO pricing," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    8. Wei-Fong Pan, 2019. "Geopolitical Risk and R&D investment," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2019-11, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    9. Liu, Guanchun & Zhang, Chengsi, 2020. "Economic policy uncertainty and firms' investment and financing decisions in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    10. Tran, Quoc Trung, 2021. "Economic policy uncertainty and cost of debt financing: International evidence," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    11. Ma, Huanyu & Hao, Dapeng, 2022. "Economic policy uncertainty, financial development, and financial constraints: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 368-386.
    12. Wadhwa, Kavita & Goodell, John W., 2024. "Political uncertainty and stock price crash risk: Insights from state-elections in an emerging market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 95(PB).
    13. Al-Thaqeb, Saud Asaad & Algharabali, Barrak Ghanim, 2019. "Economic policy uncertainty: A literature review," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    14. Afzali, Mansoor & Ҫolak, Gönül & Fu, Mengchuan, 2021. "Economic uncertainty and corruption: Evidence from public and private firms," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    15. Duong, Huu Nhan & Nguyen, Justin Hung & Nguyen, My & Rhee, S. Ghon, 2020. "Navigating through economic policy uncertainty: The role of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Lee, Chi-Chuan & Lee, Chien-Chiang & Xiao, Shunyi, 2021. "Policy-related risk and corporate financing behavior: Evidence from China’s listed companies," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 539-547.
    17. Ahmad, Muhammad Farooq & Aziz, Saqib & El-Khatib, Rwan & Kowalewski, Oskar, 2023. "Firm-level political risk and dividend payout," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    18. Phan, Hieu V. & Nguyen, Nam H. & Nguyen, Hien T. & Hegde, Shantaram, 2019. "Policy uncertainty and firm cash holdings," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 71-82.
    19. Li, Kaifeng & Xia, Bobo & Chen, Yun & Ding, Ning & Wang, Jie, 2021. "Environmental uncertainty, financing constraints and corporate investment: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    20. Schwarz, Lucas Allan Diniz & Dalmácio, Flávia Zóboli, 2021. "The relationship between economic policy uncertainty and corporate leverage: Evidence from Brazil," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:glofin:v:65:y:2025:i:c:s1044028325000353. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620162 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.