Boardroom gender diversity and CEO pay deviation: Australian evidence

Abstract

Abstract We study whether boardroom gender diversity affects CEO pay. Specifically, we investigate the association between boardroom gender diversity and CEO pay deviation from the optimal level of CEO pay based on firm characteristics and market performance. Using a sample of 2,288 firm‐year observations for the period 2006–2014, we find that boardroom gender diversity is negatively associated with CEO pay deviation, suggesting that firms with gender‐diverse boards are cautious about the consequences of CEO pay deviation (under/overpayment), and thus likely to bridge the gap between CEO actual pay and expected pay. These findings provide important insights to the global discussion on executive compensation. Our findings are robust to alternative variable specifications, propensity score matching, difference‐in‐differences estimations, and generalised method of moments.