Conference Agenda

Why do so few women become CEOs? We answer the question by estimating a dynamic model of the CEO gender decision that contains three sources of gender-based differences: unobserved productivity, search frictions that reflect limited female labor supply, and employer disutility arising from discrimination against women. We find that the most crucial factor in explaining the apparent glass ceiling is the shortage of suitable candidates. Net of the availability of suitable candidates, boards are in favor of hiring female CEOs.

We find widespread evidence of firms appearing to avoid paying overtime wages by exploiting a federal law that allows them to do so for employees termed as “managers” and paid a salary above a pre-defined dollar threshold. We show that listings for salaried positions with managerial titles exhibit an almost five-fold increase around the federal regulatory threshold, including the listing of managerial positions such as “Directors of First Impression,” whose jobs are otherwise equivalent to non-managerial employees (in this case, a front desk assistant). Overtime avoidance is more pronounced when firms have stronger bargaining power and employees have weaker rights. Moreover, it is more pronounced for firms with financial constraints and when there are weaker labor outside options in the region. We find stronger results for occupations in low-wage industries that are penalized more often for overtime violations. Our results suggest broad usage of overtime avoidance using job titles across locations and over time, persisting through the present day. Moreover, the wages avoided are substantial - we estimate that firms avoid roughly 13.5% in overtime expenses for each strategic “manager” hired during our sample period.

What characterizes the business angels that invest in early stage innovative firms and what determines their investment performance? We use Norwegian population data on equity transactions for the years 2004--2018 and find that angel investors earn higher returns in their public stock investments than other investors. Their angel investment returns in innovative firms are highly skewed and we document a pronounced performance persistence in angel investments among angel investors.