evidoria

← Back to browse

Literature / resource Imported

Boardroom gender diversity and performance of listed companies in Italy

Italy · National · See the Italy profile

Evidence: Quasi-experimental Top 56% 63/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

The proportion of women in boardroom has traditionally been low around the world. Over the last decades, several jurisdictions have adopted legislative actions in order to trigger a tangible progress in female representation, also moving from the assumption that gender balanced b

17 percentage points
Instant effect of the reform on the share of female directors
11 percentage points
Follow-up effect of the reform on the share of female directors
17-20 % of board members
Female-representation threshold above which performance effects turn positive
around 10 members
Average board size in the sample

Details

Promoter
G.S.F. Bruno, A. Ciavarella, N. Linciano, CONSOB — website
Power domain
Economic Power
Methods / tools
Competence development, Awareness-raising, Monitoring
Keywords
Gender diversity, gender quotas, board diversity, firms performance, critical mass theory, corporate governance.

Context

This working paper by CONSOB researchers (Bruno, Ciavarella and Linciano) analyses Italy's Law 120/2011, which introduced mandatory gender quotas for listed-company boards from August 2012, treating it as an exogenous shock to board composition. Using a dynamic panel-data model over 2008-2016, it examines both the law's effect on boardroom gender diversity and its impact on the profitability of listed Italian firms.

Results

The reform is estimated to have produced an instant effect on the share of female directors of 17 percentage points, with a follow-up effect of a further 11 percentage points. Static models show no significant effect on firm performance, but a dynamic model finds a positive performance effect once female representation exceeds a threshold of about 17-20% of board members — roughly two seats, given an average board size of around ten members.

Conclusions

Results on firm performance are not significant when static models are used, and the broader literature's evidence on this relationship remains inconclusive because potential reverse causality can bias findings.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful