Do Women Directors Improve Firm Performance and Risk in India?

© 2020 World Scientific Publishing Company. Midwest Finance Association. We examine board diversity in India following a 2013 law requiring all public companies to have at least one female board member. Our results indicate that having women on the board of directors improves firm performance and reduces firm bankruptcy risk. Using data on directors\u27 backgrounds and social connections, we find that important factors include female directors\u27 independence, social network size, committee memberships, and graduate education. Our results hold after addressing endogeneity using instrumental variable (IV) and difference-in-differences (DID) approaches