We show that stock prices of firms with gender-diverse boards reflect more firmspecific
information after controlling for corporate governance, earnings quality,
institutional ownership and acquisition activity. Further, we show that the relationship
is stronger for firms with weak corporate governance suggesting that gender-diverse
boards could act as a substitute mechanism for corporate governance that would be
otherwise weak. The results are robust to alternative specifications of informativeness
and gender diversity and to sensitivity tests controlling for time-invariant firm
characteristics and alternative measures of stock price informativeness. We also find
that gender diversity improves stock price informativeness through the mechanism of
increased public disclosure in large firms and by encouraging private information
collection in small firms. 1. Introduction
In this study we examine whether gender-diverse boards in U.S. listed companies make them more transparent and
encourage the incorporation of more firm-specific information into stock prices.3 We define transparency as having two
channels: the public disclosure of more firm-specific information by managers; and greater incentives for the collection of
private firm-specific information by investors. Consistent with these two channels of transparency, our study addresses the potential role of female directors in increasing the disclosure of firm-specific information and in improving the
incentives for the collection of private information