How do female CEOs affect the corporate capital structure in Norwegian private firms

Abstract

The effect of managerial characteristics on corporate financing policies has gained a growing attention during the last years. Thus, this thesis aims at investigating how the gender of the CEO affects the corporate capital structure in Norwegian private firms. In short, within a behavioural perspective, males and females are perceived to be different from each other. These differences are presumed to be reflected in their financing behaviour and therefore assumed to influence decisions regarding the corporate capital structure. Using panel data of Norwegian private firms over the time period 2001-2017 obtained from the Centre of Corporate Governance Research (CCGR) database, this thesis examines how female CEOs shapes the firm´s financing decisions in terms of debt levels, debt maturity and cost of borrowing. By categorising the sample by firm size, we find that female CEOs of smaller Norwegian private firms adopt a capital structure with higher amounts of leverage, with a shorter maturity, at a lower cost. These findings are proven to be robust for several model specifications. Our results provide evidence of female- and male CEOs differing in their financing choices, hence adopting capital structures with different amounts of leverage, different maturities and at a different cost. However, compared to previous studies of listed US companies, our study suggests that considering the geographical patterns in gender equality and diversity might prove important when studying the effect of female CEOs in future research.