Does the gender diversity of boards of directors matter? A
recent research report from Credit Suisse (click here) suggests that the
presence of women on boards is correlated with better firm performance. This
raises an interesting economic question: why should the presence of women on
boards matter? Are women more empathetic
with employees and therefore better managers?
Are women better at selecting successful firms? Are successful firms able to have the luxury
of having more women on their boards?
Are women better at multi-tasking (a key skill for modern corporate
managers)? Are women on boards so good
at their job because they have been toughened up by constant male chauvinism on
their rise up the corporate ladder? This subject would be a great PhD topic for
someone! Click here to read an older post on this issue.
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Amir Kermani, James Kwak and Todd Mitton have written a paper on whether firms connected to Timothy Geithner benefited from these connections. They do so by looking at how stocks of these firms reacted to the announcement that he was a nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008. They find that there were large abnormal returns for connected firms. Below is the paper's abstract and the full paper is available here . The announcement of Timothy Geithner as nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008 produced a cumulative abnormal return for financial firms with which he had a connection. This return was about 6% after the first full day of trading and about 12% after ten trading days. There were subsequently abnormal negative returns for connected firms when news broke that Geithner's confirmation might be derailed by tax issues. Excess returns for connected firms may reflect the perceived impact of relying on the advice of a small ne...