As part of the series of the „Finance Research Seminar“, VGSF welcomes Toni Whited from University of Michigan to present her research paper.
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Paper
Underrepresentation of Women CEOs
(joint with Li He)
Why do so few women become CEOs? To understand this glass ceiling, we estimate a dynamic model of the CEO gender decision, which contains unobserved productivity, search costs reflecting limited female labor supply, and employer disutility from discrimination. The key factor is the shortage of suitable female candidates, as boards prefer hiring women, and productivity differences between genders are minimal. We find no evidence of a glass cliff in which women become CEOs just as firms are failing. While better governance is associated with women becoming CEOs, the importance of limited female labor supply is unrelated to governance.
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