Board gender diversity and bank risks: Evidence from Australia

Recently, regulators and investors have shown an increasing interest in the promotion of diversity in the corporate boards of directors. In this paper, we employ data from the Australian bank boards to provide new insights on the diversity-risk nexus, based on a dataset of the Australian banks for the period of 2004 to 2019. We examine board gender diversity from two perspectives across the board and among board leaders. Our results support the context-dependent impact of gender diversity on the board of directors and highlight the beneficial impact on the risk of banks when considering gender diversity and the presence of a dominant gender group in the boardroom. (c) 2022 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.