Do women drive corporate social responsibility? Evidence from gender diversity reforms around the world

In this study we investigate the effect of female director on corporate social responsibility (CSR) by taking the advantage of the introduction of legal gender quota that led to the exogenous change in the female representation in corporate board around the world. We find that the “gender quote” reforms effectively increase gender diversity and improve CSR performance. When comparing the legislation-based regulations with governance code-based regulations, we find that the former brings stronger effects on CSR performance. Finally, the effects are more pronounced in countries with higher gender equality or common law legal systems.