Boardroom gender diversity and CEO pay deviation: Australian evidence

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Accounting and Finance

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Abstract

© 2020 Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand We study whether boardroom gender diversity affects CEO pay. Specifically, we investigate the association between boardroom gender diversity and CEO pay deviation from the optimal level of CEO pay based on firm characteristics and market performance. Using a sample of 2,288 firm-year observations for the period 2006–2014, we find that boardroom gender diversity is negatively associated with CEO pay deviation, suggesting that firms with gender-diverse boards are cautious about the consequences of CEO pay deviation (under/overpayment), and thus likely to bridge the gap between CEO actual pay and expected pay. These findings provide important insights to the global discussion on executive compensation. Our findings are robust to alternative variable specifications, propensity score matching, difference-in-differences estimations, and generalised method of moments.

ISSN

0810-5391

Publisher

Blackwell Publishing

Disciplines

Business

Keywords

Overpaid CEO, Pay deviation, Underpaid CEO, Women on corporate boards

Scopus ID

85090945286

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

no

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