The Voting Behavior of Women-Led Mutual Funds

The Voting Behavior of Women-Led Mutual Funds

Alberta Di Giuli, Alexandre Garel, Arthur Petit-Romec

Series number :

Serial Number: 
875/2023

Date posted :

February 07 2023

Last revised :

February 07 2023
SSRN Share

Keywords

  • Gender Diversity • 
  • Shareholder voting • 
  • mutual funds

This paper examines the voting behavior of women-led mutual funds. We find that women-led mutual funds are more likely to support environmental and social (ES) proposals, but not governance ones, and their voting support is more pronounced for proposals explicitly related to ES risks. Among ES proposals, they support more environmental proposals.

Women-led mutual funds are more likely to vote with management in firms headed by female CEOs. They are also more likely to support female candidates in director elections, especially so when there is a shortage of female directors. Finally, women-led mutual funds are not more likely to follow ISS recommendations than other funds. Our results suggest that gender differences in fund management teams influence their voting behavior.

View full abstract

Authors

Real name:
Alexandre Garel
Real name:
Arthur Petit-Romec