Gang Wang, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
Abstract: Societal expectations that new mothers may be less committed to their careers contribute to a persistent child penalty on women's labor market outcomes. We adopt a quasi-experimental approach surrounding childbirth and investigate how pregnancy and motherhood affect the productivity and career prospects of female fund managers. The mutual fund setting allows us to precisely measure productivity changes during the time of childbirth, as daily fund returns can be used for a timely and accurate performance evaluation of a fund manager. Using novel data on fund managers' maternity leaves from 2008 to 2022, we show that the persistent child penalty in the mutual fund industry cannot be explained by sustained productivity changes. We document that women's productivity declines only temporarily around childbirth. In particular, funds of managers entering motherhood underperform by 2.3% to 2.8% p.a. during pregnancy and the first six months after returning from maternity leave. Our evidence suggests that psychological and physiological distractions associated with childbirth prevent female managers from devoting full attention to their work during this period. They reduce the number of corporate site visits and manage their portfolios less actively. The effect is stronger for busier fund managers who are in charge of more funds. However, only six months post-return to work, new mothers’ performance aligns with peers again. Despite the transient nature of this productivity dip, children impose persistent penalties on women’s careers in the mutual fund industry. We document a persistent decline in the participation rate of female managers after childbirth, and conditional on staying in the fund industry, new mothers face lower promotion prospects.
Discussant: Xing Huang, Washington University in St. Louis
Abstract: Women often lack the opportunity to enter exclusive social clubs, reaping fewer benefits from their social networks. We investigate, conditioning on having the opportunity to interact with the right people in a professional setting, whether women can better utilize connections for career performance and advancement than men. Using a unique dataset that documents when, where, and with whom a financial analyst interacts at investor conferences, we find that female analysts issue more accurate earnings forecasts than their male counterparts after establishing connections with the firms’ executives. This result is robust to exploiting variations
in connections within an analyst-firm pair. In addition, female analysts overcome homophily when interacting with executives, and their superior ability to utilize connections is recognized in both the capital and labor markets. Our findings suggest that women are better at capitalizing on professional connections and highlight the importance of promoting women’s networking opportunities in the workplace.
Abstract: We explore the existence and causes of gender disparities in the patent examination process. We find that applications filed by female inventors are significantly less likely to receive a first-action approval or a final granting than those filed by male inventors. Consistent with the ‘gender bias’ hypothesis, the female disadvantage in patenting becomes smaller when inventors’ gender is less likely known to examiners. Moreover, the economic value of patents granted to female inventors is significantly higher, suggesting that women must clear a higher hurdle to secure a patent compared to men. Additionally, we find that women are significantly more likely than men to abandon their applications after receiving a rejection in the first-action decision, lending support to our ‘lack of persistence’ hypothesis. Our findings shed light on the causes of gender differences in patent examination and offer implications for policies aimed at creating a level playing field in patenting.
Discussant: Bo Bian, University of British Columbia
Abstract: Is there a gender gap in the serial founding of VC-backed startups? We address this question by introducing a new empirical design that exploits differences in future funding outcomes for men and women who cofounded the textit{same} startup. We find substantial gender gaps, both on average and following failure or success of the current startup. Following failure, our estimates imply that women are 22.5 percent less likely to found another VC-backed startup compared to their cofounders who are men. Among those who do found another VC-backed firm, women raise 24.6 percent less capital. Moreover, the results of an outcome test show no gender difference in the success probabilities of subsequent startups, despite the large funding gap. The gender gaps that we observe appear to be driven by unequal treatment by investors and not by gender differences in quality or founder preferences. In fact, our analysis of potential supply-side channels reveals striking negative spillovers following investors’ experiences with textit{other} women-founded startups.
Discussant: Ayako Yasuda, University of California-Davis
