• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site

Does Increased Gender Diversity Produce More Effective Boards of Directors? Evidence from the UK

Student: Shagants Telman

Faculty: Faculty of Economic Sciences

Educational Programme: Joint HSE-NES Undergraduate Program in Economics (Bachelor)

Final Grade: 9

Year of Graduation: 2016

This paper is devoted to an analysis of the relationship between gender diversity of corporate boards of directors and firm performance, as measured by Tobin's Q. Despite the significant amount of research conducted on this issue, the causal inference is extremely difficult to obtain due to the problem of endogeneity. In this paper I explore the introduction of female gender quotas in the UK in 2010 to extract the impact of exogenous changes to the boards mandated by the quota. By introducing a new instrumental variables approach employing regression discontinuity design, I demonstrate that the increased participation of females in corporate boards could have resulted in a positive impact on firm value. The results call for a closer attention to the problem of women inclusion in boards of directors and inform about the potential benefits which could be obtained by the firms.

Full text (added May 10, 2016)

Student Theses at HSE must be completed in accordance with the University Rules and regulations specified by each educational programme.

Summaries of all theses must be published and made freely available on the HSE website.

The full text of a thesis can be published in open access on the HSE website only if the authoring student (copyright holder) agrees, or, if the thesis was written by a team of students, if all the co-authors (copyright holders) agree. After a thesis is published on the HSE website, it obtains the status of an online publication.

Student theses are objects of copyright and their use is subject to limitations in accordance with the Russian Federation’s law on intellectual property.

In the event that a thesis is quoted or otherwise used, reference to the author’s name and the source of quotation is required.

Search all student theses