We find the limited supply of female directors, rather than gender differences or boardroom biases, can create an informational disadvantage for some female independent directors, as measured by their open market trading profits. The information disparity is largely isolated to firms with abnormally low representation by female directors. Female independent directors who are located further away from the company's headquarters, have less industry experience or have shorter tenure exhibit the most limited information access. Accounting for these obstacles reduces the gender disparity in information. We further find that this information disparity among female independent directors contributes to the variation in their influence on board monitoring. More informed female independent directors are associated with fewer restatements, lower abnormal CEO compensation and higher Tobin's Q. Our results have several policy implications.

我们发现，女性董事的供应有限，而不是性别差异或董事会偏见，可能会给某些女性独立董事带来信息方面的不利影响（以公开市场交易利润衡量）。信息差异主要是由女性董事代表异常低的公司所隔离。女性独立董事离公司总部较远，行业经验较少或任期较短，显示的信息访问权限最有限。解决这些障碍可以减少信息中的性别差异。我们进一步发现，女性独立董事之间的信息差异加剧了她们对董事会监督的影响。女性知情的独立董事越多，重述就越少，