Female gender diversity on corporate board and bid ask spread

Abstract

Abstract Female participation on corporate board is one of the most studied topics in corporate governance research. This paper analyzes the effect of female directors and gender diversity on bid ask spread. We calculate the score of female governance and we test three proxies of a bid-ask spread. Our results provide comprehensive and robust evidence for the association between female board participation and stock liquidity in Tunisian market. This study is based on a sample covering all financial firms in Tunisia (banks, insurances, and leasing) from 2008 to 2019 based on panel data approach. We conclude that female directors generate a positive effect on stock liquidity when they have a more active role on the board and when they are represented in relatively large numbers. Female CEO and institutional female directors enhance monitoring quality, develop control and improve supervising. Female directors are more effective at changing board processes, improving governance, and then affect significantly and negatively bid ask spread. Our research is the first to use the female governance index, it proves that female directors improve corporate governance, enhance stock liquidity. This result encourages firms to select competitive women to occupy strategic posts.