Corporate governance, women's participation and firm performance: empirical analysis using a non-parametric evaluation methodology

ABSTRACT In recent years, corporate governance (CG) has become a central point of interest in corporate finance. Among others issues, the participation of women as executives in corporate management has received much attention. The academic research in this field is controversial. We investigate the relationship between boardroom gender diversity and firm financial performance, using a sample of 76 U.S.A's major listed companies between 2006 and 2013. A novel CG performance indicator is constructed using a multi-attribute approach based on the principles of efficiency measurement, separating the effect of women's administrative participation from other CG attributes. At the second stage, a panel regression analysis is performed to explore the relationship between CG and women's participation on the risk-adjusted performance of the firms.

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