THE EFFECT OF GENDER DIVERSITY IN THE BOARDROOM ON BANK RISK-TAKING AND BANK PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL SECTOR.

This dissertation investigates the relationship between board gender diversity and bank risk-taking and performance, with attention to how this relationship varies across different bank business models. This research uses a panel dataset consisting of 1361 bank-year observations from different international banks during the period 2013-2023. Estimations are made by employing a series of fixed effects and dynamic GMM regressions, complemented by robustness checks including categorical gender diversity thresholds and log transformations. This research also incorporates a cluster-based classification of bank business models—retail, wholesale, investment, and diversified— to examine contextual differences in the effects of board gender diversity. The results indicate that greater female representation on bank boards is significantly associated with higher capital adequacy ratios, particularly in investment and wholesale banks. The results indicate that greater female representation on bank boards is significantly associated with higher capital adequacy ratios, particularly in investment and wholesale banks. This suggests that gender diversity contributes to more prudent capital management in banks, especially in high-risk banking environments.