IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdi/wptemi/td_1014_15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Women as ‘gold dust’: gender diversity in top boards and the performance of Italian banks

Author

Listed:
  • Silvia Del Prete

    (Bank of Italy)

  • Maria Lucia Stefani

    (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

European comparisons for the 2000s show that Italy was among the EU countries where women were least represented in bank boardrooms. Using a unique dataset on Italian banks over the period 1995-2010, this paper investigates the effects of gender diversity in boards on bank riskiness and economic performance. Taking account of omitted variables and reverse causality problems, as a source of endogeneity, our main econometric findings suggest that gender diversity may have a positive impact on the quality of credit and, to a lesser extent, on profitability. Both results may be driven by women’s higher risk aversion and their attitude to monitoring activities. Our study therefore suggests that women are ‘gold dust’ for Italian banks and that increasing their presence may be beneficial to economic performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvia Del Prete & Maria Lucia Stefani, 2015. "Women as ‘gold dust’: gender diversity in top boards and the performance of Italian banks," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1014, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1014_15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/temi-discussione/2015/2015-1014/en_tema_1014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thorsten Beck & Patrick Behr & Andre Guettler, 2013. "Gender and Banking: Are Women Better Loan Officers?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1279-1321.
    2. Rustichini, Aldo & Guiso, Luigi, 2011. "What drives women out of entrepreneurship? The joint role of testosterone and culture," CEPR Discussion Papers 8204, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Adams, Renée B. & Ferreira, Daniel, 2009. "Women in the boardroom and their impact on governance and performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 291-309, November.
    4. Bellucci, Andrea & Borisov, Alexander & Zazzaro, Alberto, 2010. "Does gender matter in bank-firm relationships? Evidence from small business lending," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2968-2984, December.
    5. 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.
    6. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    7. Silvia Del Prete & Maria Lucia Stefani, 2012. "Women in Bank Boardrooms: Evidence from Italian Data," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 2, pages 129-160, April-Jun.
    8. Renee B. Adams & Hamid Mehran, 2003. "Is corporate governance different for bank holding companies?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 9(Apr), pages 123-142.
    9. Claudia Biancotti & Giuseppe Ilardi & Clair Lavinia Moscatelli, 2013. "The glass drop ceiling: composition effects or implicit discrimination?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 182, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Liang, Qi & Xu, Pisun & Jiraporn, Pornsit, 2013. "Board characteristics and Chinese bank performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 2953-2968.
    11. 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.
    12. Antonio Accetturo, 2014. "Political selection in the skilled city," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 956, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    13. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    14. David A. Carter & Betty J. Simkins & W. Gary Simpson, 2003. "Corporate Governance, Board Diversity, and Firm Value," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 38(1), pages 33-53, February.
    15. Grant Kirkpatrick, 2009. "The corporate governance lessons from the financial crisis," OECD Journal: Financial Market Trends, OECD Publishing, vol. 2009(1), pages 61-87.
    16. Paola Schwizer & Maria-Gaia Soana & Doriana Cucinelli, 2012. "The advantages of board diversity: an empirical analysis on the Italian market," BANCARIA, Bancaria Editrice, vol. 3, pages 24-36, 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. Silvia Del Prete & Maria Lucia Stefani, 2021. "Women as “gold dust”: Gender diversity in top boards and the performance of Italian banks," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 50(2), July.
    2. Silvia Del Prete & Maria Lucia Stefani, 2013. "Women on Italian bank boards: are they �gold dust�?," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 175, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Fang, Sheng & Goh, Chorching & Roberts, Mark & Xu, Lixin Colin & Zeufack, Albert, 2022. "Female entrepreneurs and productivity around the world: Rule of law, network, culture, and gender equality," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Dong, Yizhe & Girardone, Claudia & Kuo, Jing-Ming, 2017. "Governance, efficiency and risk taking in Chinese banking," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 211-229.
    5. Tam, On Kit & Liang, Hsin-Yu & Chen, Sheng-Hung & Liu, Bin, 2021. "Do valued independent directors matter to commercial bank performance?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 1-20.
    6. Skała, Dorota & Weill, Laurent, 2018. "Does CEO gender matter for bank risk?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 64-74.
    7. Ajay Palvia & Emilia Vähämaa & Sami Vähämaa, 2015. "Are Female CEOs and Chairwomen More Conservative and Risk Averse? Evidence from the Banking Industry During the Financial Crisis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 577-594, October.
    8. Zhou, Yifan & Kara, Alper & Molyneux, Philip, 2019. "Chair-CEO generation gap and bank risk-taking," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 352-372.
    9. 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.
    10. Regina M. Reinert & Florian Weigert & Christoph H. Winnefeld, 2016. "Does female management influence firm performance? Evidence from Luxembourg banks," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(2), pages 113-136, May.
    11. Catarina Fernandes & Jorge Farinha & Francisco Vitorino Martins & Cesario Mateus, 2018. "Bank governance and performance: a survey of the literature," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(3), pages 236-256, July.
    12. 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.
    13. 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).
    14. Bowo Setiyono & Amine Tarazi, 2018. "Does Diversity of Bank Board Members Affect Performance and Risk? Evidence from an Emerging Market," CSR, Sustainability, Ethics & Governance, in: Belén Díaz Díaz & Samuel O. Idowu & Philip Molyneux (ed.), Corporate Governance in Banking and Investor Protection, chapter 0, pages 185-218, Springer.
    15. Young Zik Shin & Jeung-Yoon Chang & Kyeongmin Jeon & Hyunpyo Kim, 2020. "Female directors on the board and investment efficiency: evidence from Korea," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(4), pages 438-479, September.
    16. Silvia Del Prete & Giulio Papini & Marco Tonello, 2022. "Gender quotas, board diversity and spillover effects. Evidence from Italian banks," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1395, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Reinert, Regina M. & Weigert, Florian & Winnefeld, Christoph H., 2015. "Does Female Management Influence Firm Performance? Evidence from Luxembourg Banks," Working Papers on Finance 1501, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    18. Bhatia, Madhur & Gulati, Rachita, 2021. "Board governance and bank performance: A meta- analysis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    19. Aruoriwo Marian Chijoke-Mgbame & Agyenim Boateng & Chijoke Oscar Mgbame, 2020. "Board gender diversity, audit committee and financial performance: evidence from Nigeria," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 262-286, July.
    20. José María Díez-Esteban & Jorge Bento Farinha & Conrado Diego García-Gómez & Cesario Mateus, 2022. "Does board composition and ownership structure affect banks’ systemic risk? European evidence," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 23(2), pages 155-172, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    banking; corporate governance; gender diversity; board of directors;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bdi:wptemi:td_1014_15. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdigvit.html .

    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.