Share Buybacks and Gender Diversity

Share Buybacks and Gender Diversity

Theodoros Evgeniou, Theo Vermaelen

Series number :

Serial Number: 
493/2017

Date posted :

January 01 2017

Last revised :

January 24 2017
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • Gender Diversity • 
  • Share Buybacks • 
  • market timing • 
  • ethics

We find that board gender diversity increases the likelihood that firms announce a buyback but long-term excess returns are significantly smaller when there are females on the board. Hence, it appears that boards with women are less able to time the market by repurchasing undervalued stock.

Our results are consistent with past research that finds that male executives make superior returns than females from insider trading. However, we find that timing ability increases significantly when women have better access to information networks, i.e. when they are CEOs or when they sit on other boards.

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Authors

Real name:
Theodoros Evgeniou