This paper investigates how women’s representation on corporate boards affects financial reporting quality. Drawing on a discussion of existing research, I argue that increasing women’s representation on boards reduces undue CEO influence over the board, and thereby, accounting quality will improve. Using a difference-in-difference (DiD) approach, this paper documents how increasing female representation increases accounting quality. This result holds only in the long run as females gain more experience in the boardroom. In addition, I show that the effect of female representation on accounting quality is attenuated for larger firms and larger boards. This is consistent with the notion that the effect of female representation is likely to be stronger when the information friction is higher. These findings challenge the conventions that underscore the importance of board diversity for today’s firms.

本文调查了妇女在公司董事会中的代表如何影响财务报告质量。在对现有研究进行讨论的基础上，我认为增加女性在董事会中的代表人数可以减少首席执行官对董事会的不当影响，从而改善会计质量。本文使用差异法（DiD-in-difference，DiD）来记录女性代表人数的增加如何提高会计质量。从长远来看，随着女性在董事会中获得更多经验，这一结果才成立。此外，我表明，对于较大的公司和较大的董事会，女性代表制对会计质量的影响会减弱。这与以下观点一致：在信息摩擦较高时，女性代表的作用可能会更强。