Recently, U.S. activists, scholars, and policy makers have turned their attention to a notable effort to address the large gender gap in top business management: gender quotas for corporate boards of directors. Gender quotas for corporate boards represent an intriguing option, even if the...

Leadership roles in banking remain dominated by men; only about one in six bank board members is female. Connections among board members can improve firm performance, but women on boards are much less connected than men. In this paper, we study how gender relates to the role of connections: how...

We investigate the trends and drivers of racial diversity on U.S. corporate boards. We document that U.S. boards are persistently racially homogenous, but that this is changing. About 10% of directors on the average board during our sample are non-white, however, new director appointments of...