Diversity and Performance

This study measures the performance of U.S. firms initiating same-sex domestic partnership benefit (SSDPB) policies. The results show that holding these firms upon their SSDPB initiation in a calendar portfolio earns a four-factor annualized excess return (alpha) of approximately 10% over the 1995-2008 sample period, beating 95% of all professional mutual funds in the United States. This finding is robust to several tests of reverse causality. SSDPB adopters also show significant improvement in operating performance relative to nonadopters. <i>This paper was accepted by Brad Barber, finance.</i>