Managing bank liquidity hoarding during uncertain times: The role of board gender diversity

Arbeitspapier

This paper examines the effect of executive board gender diversity on the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and bank liquidity hoarding (LH). We focus on the Russian banking sector, which, relative to most of the world, has a high share of women on bank executive boards. Using the news-based EPU index developed by Baker, Bloom, and Davis (2016) and LH measures proposed by Berger, Guedhami, Kim, and Li (2022), we exploit a unique dataset from the Russian banking sector. While higher economic policy uncertainty tends to increase liquidity hoarding, we find this effect diminishes as gender diversity of the board increases. We attribute this finding to the moderating influence of gender diversity on stability and overreaction in decision-making. Additionally, we find that the channel through which board gender diversity affects the impact of economic policy uncertainty on liquidity hoarding takes place via the hoarding of liquid assets. Our findings are robust to the use of alternative measures for economic policy uncertainty and gender diversity. As women are still significantly under-represented on bank boards in most countries, these results argue for policies to promote gender diversity of bank boards as a means of limiting detrimental effects of economic policy uncertainty.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-952-323-422-2
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: BOFIT Discussion Papers ; No. 11/2022

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; General Financial Markets: Government Policy and Regulation ; Banks; Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages ; Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Voting; Proxy Contests; Corporate Governance ; Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Political Economy; Property Rights
• Subject: liquidity hoarding ; bank boards ; gender diversity ; economic policy uncertainty

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Davydov, Denis ; Garanina, Tatiana ; Weill, Laurent
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Bank of Finland, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT)
• (where): Helsinki
• (when): 2022

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/266095
• URN: urn:nbn:fi:bof-202211021432
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET