Gender quotas and support for women in board elections

Arbeitspapier

We study shareholder support for corporate board nominees before and after the 2018 California gender quota. Pre-quota, new female nominees received greater support than new male nominees, consistent with women being held to a higher standard. Post-quota, as the number of women increased, support for new (mandated) female nominees decreased to the same level of, but not lower than, the support that new male nominees enjoy. Still, share prices reacted negatively to the quota. We show that this reaction was concentrated in firms that did not turn over their least-supported male directors when adding women to comply with the quota.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IFN Working Paper ; No. 1425

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Corporate Finance and Governance: General ; Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance ; Corporate Finance and Governance: Government Policy and Regulation ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination ; Human Rights Law; Gender Law
• Subject: Board of directors ; Gender quota ; Regulation ; Corporate Governance

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gertsberg, Marina ; Mollerstrom, Johanna ; Pagel, Michaela
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
• (where): Stockholm
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/262039
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET