Women’s presence on the board of directors and stock returns

Abstract

Using an event study, the main purpose of this paper was to analyze whether the presence of women on the Board of Directors (BoD) of companies impacts the return of their shares. We collected data on the composition of the BoD on the website of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), and financial data were collected from the Economática Database. Considering the events as a whole, no significant effect of disclosure on stock returns was observed (for the individualized analysis, by stock, a significant effect was observed only in some cases in the event window). The paper is relevant in contributing to the literature on gender diversity in Finance, specifically concerning studies addressing the presence of women in the BoD. This research also highlights the semi-strong aspect of the Brazilian stock market, considering the theory of market efficiency.