Unraveling the impact of female CEOs on corporate bond markets

Little is known about how executive gender shapes the inherent conflict of interest between shareholders and bondholders. Using a sample of almost 100,000 unique bond-year observations, this study investigates how the appointment of female chief executive officers (CEOs) lowers the default outlook. Our evidence indicates that bond yield and bond volatility are significantly lower after a female takes the helm at a firm. This executive gender effect remains highly statistically and economically significant across various robustness checks and after addressing endogeneity concerns. Female CEOs lower the default risk component of the bond yield but have no material impact on the liquidity component. Subsample analysis substantiates the conditional effect of female CEOs on bond yield and bond volatility. Our evidence indicates that female CEOs’ risk-averse attributes pass through the credit risk and information asymmetry channels.