Work

The impact of board gender composition on dividend payouts

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: This paper investigates whether female independent directors are more likely to impose high dividend payouts. We find evidence that firms with a larger fraction of female directors on their board have greater dividend payouts. This finding is robust to alternative econometric specifications, and alternative measures of dividend payouts and female board representation. The positive effect of board gender composition on dividends remains when we employ propensity score matching, the instrumental variable approach, and difference-in-differences approach to address potential endogeneity concerns. Furthermore, we find that board gender composition significantly increases the dividend payout only for firms with weak governance, suggesting that female directors use dividend payouts as a governance device.

Source: Journal of Corporate Finance

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2017.01.001

Authors: Jie Chen, Woon Sau Leung, Marc Goergen

Institution: Cardiff University

Language: English

Topic: Corporate Finance and Governance

Subfield: Finance

Field: Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Gender equality, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,140