Are Women Executives Disadvantaged?

Abstract

We investigate gender di®erences in insider trading behavior of senior corporate execu- tives in the U.S. between 1975 and 2008. We ¯nd that, on average, both female and male executives make positive pro¯ts from insider trading. Males, however, earn about twice as much as females and also trade more than females. All these results also hold for the sub-sample of very top executives. The results are consistent with the view that female executives have a disadvantage relative to males in accessing inside information even if they have equal formal status. We are able to rule out gender di®erences in dispositional factors such as overcon¯dence and risk-aversion as sole explanations for our results.