Title

Board gender composition and debt financing

Source of Publication

International Journal of Finance and Economics

Abstract

© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. There is a recent upsurge in calls for more women on corporate boards around the world; however, a perception of women being risk-averse that is created by lottery and gambling studies has affected women's advancement in their career ladder. Our study investigates women's risk averseness when they are on corporate boards in the context of a firm's use of debt financing. Using a unique Australian setting, we find that women on the board have a positive association with the firm's use of debt financing. This suggests that firms with women on the board are not conservative in using debt financing. Our results are robust to the use of alternative measures of gender diversity and to a series of sensitivity checks including propensity score matching, difference-in-differences and two-stage least square techniques.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2020

DOI

10.1002/ijfe.1951

Author First name, Last name, Institution

Ammad Ahmed, Zayed University
Muhammad Atif, Macquarie University

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS