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Gender, Competition, and Performance: International Evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2024

Kai Li Open the ORCID record for Kai Li [Opens in a new window] ,
Qiyuan Peng ,
Rui Shen  and
Gabriel Wong
Kai Li*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia Sauder School of Business
Qiyuan Peng
Affiliation:
University of Dayton School of Business Administration qpeng1@udayton.edu
Rui Shen
Affiliation:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Shenzhen Finance Institute School of Management and Economics ruishen@cuhk.edu.cn
Gabriel Wong
Affiliation:
Cardiff University Department of Economics wonggk@cardiff.ac.uk
*
kai.li@sauder.ubc.ca (corresponding author)
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Abstract

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Using a hand-collected sample of 18,269 equity analysts from 42 countries over the period of 2004 to 2019, we establish an intriguing negative association between a country’s institutional/economic development and its female share of equity analysts. We show that, in individualistic countries only, there is no gender gap in analyst forecast accuracy. We further show that female analysts are more skilled and more likely to drop out when underperforming in individualistic countries compared to peers in collectivistic countries. The evidence supports our hypothesis that the national cultural value of individualism encourages women to make career choices consistent with their general aversion to competition.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , June 2025 , pp. 1686 - 1726
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Michael G. Foster School of Business, University of Washington

Footnotes

We thank two anonymous reviewers, Karl Aquino, Ling Cen, Rui Dai, Mara Faccio (the editor), Jill Grennan, Alan Huang, Harrison Hong, Woon Sau Leung, Guangli Lu, Feng Mai, Ali Nejadmalayeri, Lin Peng, Paola Sapienza, Hongping Tan, Shiheng Wang, Chelsea Yang, Sterling Yang, Bernard Yeung, Jenny Zhang, and seminar participants at the Central University of Finance and Economics, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, Columbia Business School, Columbia Financial Economics Colloquium, Columbia Women’s Applied Micro Seminar, CUHK-Shenzhen, HEC Paris, IESEG School of Management, Imperial College, King’s College London, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Peking University HSBC Business School, Singapore Management University, Tsinghua University, University of Dayton, and University of Wyoming, and conference participants at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research Conference, the Montalbano Center Conference, the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics Conference, and the American Finance Association Meetings for helpful discussions and comments. We also thank Gen Li for excellent research support. We acknowledge financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant No. 435-2022-0285) and the Montalbano Centre for Responsible Leadership Development at UBC Sauder School of Business. Li acknowledges financial support from the Canada Research Chair in Corporate Governance and the hospitality of Columbia University, Fordham University, New York University, and Nanyang Technological University where she was a Visiting Scholar/Professor when the revision was completed. All errors are our own.

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