Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 71 2021
Gender board diversity and the cost of bank loans
Abstract
We examine the relationship between female board representation and the cost of lending, using a dataset of 13,714 loans from 386 banks matched with 2432 non-financial firms from 1999 to 2013. We find that firms with female directors command lower loan spreads. In addition, female independent directors have a stronger impact on lowering spreads compared to female directors' other attributes. However, as firms build relationships with their lenders this effect becomes less potent. Finally, when we introduce firm-level heterogeneity we document that changes in gender diversity exert a stronger impact on the cost of lending in the case of bank-dependent firms, especially for relationship borrowers.
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101804
- Volume
- 71
- Pages
- 101804
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref