Do Brokerages Benefit From All-Star Females?

Abstract

This paper studies whether senior women's representation in the workplace leads to positive outcomes. I find that all-star female analysts positively affect the performance of their peers. Specifically, an increase in the number of all-star females in a brokerage spurs the future performance of other analysts in that brokerage. These results are not explained by unobserved factors that may affect analysts’ sorting behavior and performance. Analysts who cover firms in the same industry as all-star females experience a larger boost in their outcomes, suggesting that knowledge spillover is an economic channel through which all-star females affect their cohorts' performance. Moreover, the timeliness of analysts' forecasts improves following a higher representation of all-star females in their brokerages.