Gender Diversity in Bank Boardrooms and Green Lending: Evidence from Euro Area Credit Register Data

Leonardo Gambacorta; Livia Pancotto; Alessio Reghezza; Martina Spaggiari

doi:10.1093/rcfs/cfaf026

Gender Diversity in Bank Boardrooms and Green Lending: Evidence from Euro Area Credit Register Data

Leonardo Gambacorta^1,2; Livia Pancotto³; Alessio Reghezza⁴; Martina Spaggiari⁴

¹ Bank for International Settlements , , and · ² CEPR , , and · ³ Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, · ⁴ European Central Bank

The Review of Corporate Finance Studies 2025

We investigate whether female representation on bank boards influences lending to polluting firms. Using confidential credit register data matched with firm-level greenhouse gas emissions, we isolate credit supply effects. Our findings reveal that banks with more gender-diverse boards lend less to more polluting firms, particularly those with the highest emission levels. These results are robust to endogeneity concerns as well as a range of alternative model specifications and econometric variations. Evidence from a European Central Bank large exposures data set confirms that this effect holds across different lending contexts. We also find that gender-diverse boards are less likely to initiate new lending relationships with highly polluting firms, suggesting an effect on both the intensive and extensive margins of credit allocation.

DOI: 10.1093/rcfs/cfaf026
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: openalex crossref