ABSTRACT Our paper is the first to identify the determinants which explain the presence of women on the board of directors and to study the relationship between gender diversity and financial performance in a US REIT context. We apply a two-stage Heckman approach to a unique panel dataset of 112 US Equity REITs over the period 2005–2015. Our results show that a REIT’s likelihood of having a woman on the board of directors depends strongly on board attributes. Especially institutional investors support gender-diverse leadership teams, which might be driven by the perception that women contribute to an enhanced internal monitoring in the REIT context, in which external monitoring is weakened through ownership restrictions. We find evidence of a U-shaped relationship between gender diversity in executive positions and price per net asset value (PRICE/NAV). In the case of REITs, a critical mass of female executives is reached at approximately 30% representation. This finding holds especially for real estate sectors with a strong consumer orientation and a high proportion of women in the workforce, such as retail and healthcare. Our performance analysis demonstrates that gender diversity has a positive effect on market performance (PRICE/NAV), but not on operating performance (FFO/SHARE).

中文翻译：

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性别多样性与财务绩效：美国房地产投资信托基金的证据

摘要我们的论文是第一个确定解释女性在董事会中的存在的决定因素并研究美国REIT环境下性别多样性与财务绩效之间关系的研究。我们对2005-2015年期间112个美国股票REIT的唯一面板数据集采用了两阶段的Heckman方法。我们的结果表明，房地产投资信托基金（REIT）聘任女性董事的可能性在很大程度上取决于董事会的属性。尤其是机构投资者支持性别多元化的领导团队，这可能是由于人们认为妇女在房地产投资信托基金背景下加强了内部监督，而外部监督由于所有权限制而减弱。我们发现高管职位性别多样性与每资产净值价格之间存在U型关系（PRICE / NAV）。就房地产投资信托基金而言，女性高管的临界人数达到了代表人数的30％。这一发现尤其适用于以消费者为导向的房地产行业，并且女性在零售和医疗保健等劳动力中的比例很高。我们的绩效分析表明，性别多样性对市场绩效（PRICE / NAV）有积极影响，但对运营绩效（FFO / SHARE）没有积极影响。