Graduation Year

2026

Date of Submission

12-2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics-Accounting

Reader 1

Matthew Magilke

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Abstract

This study examines whether the gender of top financial leaders influences corporate financing decisions of S&P 500 firms from 2015-2024. Prior research suggests that women are more conservative in their accounting policy decisions, so this paper aims to find gender effects on capital structure decisions. Using a dataset that merges BoardEx and Computat data, this study looks at the relationship between executive gender and firms’ leverage, debt to equity, and equity to asset ratios. Descriptive statistics, t-tests (Welch’s two-sample t-test), and multivariate regression models controlling for firm size, profitability, market to book ratios, and industry fixed effects showed that female CFOs are associated with a reduction in leverage and increase in equity financing. There was no observed effect for CEO gender or board gender diversity. Overall, these findings suggest that the gender of a firm's CFO, not CEO or board, has measurable and economically meaningful effects on capital structure decisions.

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