Abstrakt

Gender bias in banking and the great financial crisis.

Jessica Dunn*

This study seeks to determine the relationship between women serving as CEO’s of Bank Holding Companies (BHC’s) between 2003-09, a period leading up to and into the great financial meltdown and a very dark time in banking history. We investigate the presence of a strong gender bias in banking regarding top leadership. We examine all publicly traded BHCs over the period using handcollected data. A close examination of the data finds that a very small fraction of CEO’s are female. We also examine CEO changes over this period to see if there is a trend towards equality in the gender gap. In addition, we compare the performance and riskiness of institutions with female CEOs with those of male CEOs by comparing variables such as bank size, capital position, loan composition, etc.