Does Board Gender Diversity Affect Renewable Energy Consumption?
Journal of Corporate Finance, Vol. 66, 2021 (Open access)
European Corporate Governance Institute - Finance Working Paper No. 617/2019
71 Pages Posted: 1 Sep 2019 Last revised: 13 Jul 2021
Date Written: February 17, 2020
Abstract
This paper examines the effect of board gender diversity on renewable energy consumption. Using a panel of 11,677 firm-year observations from the USA for 2008–2016, we find a positive relationship between board gender diversity and renewable energy consumption. Moreover, boards require two or more women for women to have a significant impact on renewable energy consumption, consistent with the critical mass theory. Further, we document that the positive impact of female directors on renewable energy consumption stems from female independent rather than female executive directors. Finally, we find a positive effect of renewable energy consumption and board gender diversity on firm financial performance. Our findings are robust to different identification strategies and estimation techniques.
Keywords: Corporate governance, Renewable energy, Board gender diversity, Corporate social responsibility, Environmental protection, Global warming
JEL Classification: G30, G34
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation