The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the gender of the top executives is associated with the strength of corporate governance mechanisms within a firm.
The paper uses panel and instrumental variable regressions on an eight-year sample of the S&P 1,500 firms.
The results indicate that firms with female Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and Chief Financial Officers have higher quality governance practices. Moreover, female CEOs are documented to have the most significant influence on the governance attributes related to the board of directors and takeover defenses mechanisms.
Overall, these findings indicate that the gender of the firm’s executives may have important implications for the strength of corporate governance. The paper promotes the importance of the recent national policies in numerous countries on gender quotas at the executive level.
