IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/euriss/32567.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Lehman Sisters Hypothesis: an exploration of literature and bankers

Author

Listed:
  • van Staveren, I.P.

Abstract

This article tests the Lehman Sisters Hypothesis in two complementary, although incomplete ways. It reviews the diverse empirical literature in behavioural, experimental, and neuroeconomics as well as related fields of behavioural research. And it presents the findings from an explorative survey among Dutch financial professionals. The conclusion is that both methods find support for the Lehman Sisters Hypothesis. It shows that gender stereotypes are still influential, constraining women to achieve top positions in banking. At the same time, the analysis indicates that women perform better than men in finance and that female leaders have more balanced management skills than men and are rated as better leaders. This would plea for having more rather than less women at the top of the financial sector.

Suggested Citation

  • van Staveren, I.P., 2012. "The Lehman Sisters Hypothesis: an exploration of literature and bankers," ISS Working Papers - General Series 545, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:euriss:32567
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/32567/wp545.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frankenhaeuser, Marianne, 1996. "Stress and Gender," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 313-327, October.
    2. Gerdes, Christer & Gränsmark, Patrik, 2010. "Strategic behavior across gender: A comparison of female and male expert chess players," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 766-775, October.
    3. 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.
    4. Jan Peil & Irene van Staveren (ed.), 2009. "Handbook of Economics and Ethics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 4252.
    5. Dreber, Anna & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Gender differences in deception," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 197-199, April.
    6. Daniela Beckmann & Lukas Menkhoff, 2008. "Will Women Be Women? Analyzing the Gender Difference among Financial Experts," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 364-384, August.
    7. Nataliya Barasinska, 2010. "Would Lehman Sisters Have Done It Differently?: An Empirical Analysis of Gender Differences in Investment Behavior," Working Paper / FINESS 6.2, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    9. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    10. Kray, Laura J. & Haselhuhn, Michael P., 2011. "Male Pragmatism in Ethical Decision Making," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt05n3d6pj, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    11. Brown, Kelly M. & Taylor, Laura O., 2000. "Do as you say, say as you do: evidence on gender differences in actual and stated contributions to public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 127-139, September.
    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. Irene van Staveren, 2014. "The Lehman Sisters hypothesis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 38(5), pages 995-1014.
    2. Fitriya Fauzi & Abdul Basyith & Poh-Ling Ho, 2017. "Women on boardroom: Does it create risk?," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1325117-132, January.
    3. Alessandra Capezio & Astghik Mavisakalyan, 2016. "Women in the boardroom and fraud: Evidence from Australia," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 41(4), pages 719-734, November.
    4. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Roberts,Mark & Xu,L. Colin & Zeufack,Albert G., 2020. "Female Business Leaders, Business and Cultural Environment, and Productivity around the World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9275, The World Bank.
    5. Czibor, Eszter & Claussen, Jörg & van Praag, Mirjam, 2019. "Women in a men’s world: Risk taking in an online card game community," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 62-89.
    6. Michael Breen & Robert Gillanders & Gemma Mcnulty & Akisato Suzuki, 2017. "Gender and Corruption in Business," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(9), pages 1486-1501, September.
    7. Oliver Entrop & Matthias F. Merkel, 2020. "Managers’ research education, the use of FX derivatives and corporate speculation," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 869-901, August.
    8. René Böheim & Christoph Freudenthaler & Mario Lackner, 2019. "Do male managers increase risk-taking of female teams? Evidence from the NCAA," Economics working papers 2019-03, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    9. Levi, Maurice & Li, Kai & Zhang, Feng, 2014. "Director gender and mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 185-200.
    10. 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.
    11. Hanousek, Jan & Shamshur, Anastasiya & Tresl, Jiri, 2019. "Firm efficiency, foreign ownership and CEO gender in corrupt environments," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 344-360.
    12. Baumann, Florian & Benndorf, Volker & Friese, Maria, 2019. "Loss-induced emotions and criminal behavior: An experimental analysis," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 134-145.
    13. Bernd Frick & Clarissa Laura Maria Spiess Bru & Daniel Kaimann, 2023. "Are Women (Really) More Lenient? Gender Differences in Expert Evaluations," Working Papers Dissertations 106, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.
    14. René Böheim & Christoph Freudenthaler & Mario Lackner, 2016. "Gender Differences in Risk-Taking: Evidence from Professional Basketball," Economics working papers 2016-07, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    15. 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.
    16. Denis Davydov & Tatiana King & Laurent Weill, 2024. "Managing bank liquidity hoarding during uncertain times: The role of board gender diversity," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(3), pages 323-348, August.
    17. Cueva, Carlos & Rustichini, Aldo, 2015. "Is financial instability male-driven? Gender and cognitive skills in experimental asset markets," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 330-344.
    18. René Böheim & Mario Lackner & Wilhelm Wagner, 2022. "Raising the Bar: Causal Evidence on Gender Differences in Risk-Taking From a Natural Experiment," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(4), pages 460-478, May.
    19. Julie A. Nelson, 2015. "Are Women Really More Risk-Averse Than Men? A Re-Analysis Of The Literature Using Expanded Methods," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 566-585, July.
    20. Skała, Dorota & Weill, Laurent, 2018. "Does CEO gender matter for bank risk?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 64-74.

    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:ems:euriss:32567. 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: RePub (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/issssnl.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.