Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance
We analyze a matched employer-employee panel data set and find that female leadership has a positive effect on female wages at the top of the distribution, and a negative one at the bottom. Moreover, performance in firms with female leadership increases with the share of female workers. This evidence is consistent with a model where female executives are better equipped at interpreting signals of productivity from female workers. This suggests substantial costs of under-representation of women at the top: for example, if women became CEOs of firms with at least 20% female employment, sales per worker would increase 6.7%.
Year of publication: |
2014-11
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Authors: | Flabbi, Luca ; Macis, Mario ; Moro, Andrea ; Schivardi, Fabiano |
Institutions: | C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers |
Subject: | executives’ gender | firm performance | gender gap | glass ceiling | statistical discrimination |
Saved in:
Online Resource