Equal Opportunity? Gender Gaps in CEO Appointments and Executive Pay
48 Pages
Posted: 11 Feb 2016
Last revised: 27 Feb 2016
Aalto University School of Business; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
BI Norwegian Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
Date Written: February 9, 2016
Abstract
This paper uses exceptionally rich data on Swedish corporate executives and their personal characteristics to study gender gaps in CEO appointments and pay. Both gaps are sizeable: 18% for CEO appointments and 27% for pay. At most one-eight of the gaps can be attributed to observable gender differences in executives’ and their firms’ characteristics. Further tests suggest that unobservable gender differences in characteristics are unlikely to account for the remaining gaps. Instead, our results are consistent with the view that male and female executives sharing equal attributes neither have equal opportunities to reach the top, nor are they equally paid.
JEL Classification: G34, J16; J24; J31
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Keloharju, Matti and Knüpfer, Samuli and Tåg, Joacim, Equal Opportunity? Gender Gaps in CEO Appointments and Executive Pay (February 9, 2016). IFN Working Paper No. 1111; Harvard Business School Research Paper Series No. 16-092. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2730207 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2730207
