Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance

Luca Flabbi, Mario Macis, Andrea Moro and Fabiano Schivardi

No 8602, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: 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%.

Keywords: glass ceiling; firm performance; gender gap; executives' gender; statistical discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J7 M12 M5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cse, nep-dem, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

Published - published in: Economic Journal, 2019, 129 (622), 2390-2423

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https://docs.iza.org/dp8602.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2019)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadreship on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2018)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2016)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2015)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2015)
Working Paper: Do Female Executives Make a Difference? The Impact of Female Leadership on Gender Gaps and Firm Performance (2014)
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