This article investigates the impact of women directors on financial outcomes—return and risk of Indian companies. It applies fixed and random effects Tobit regressions to examine the effect of female directors on financial outcomes (returns and risk) of the firm, controlling promoters’ shareholding, leverage, firm growth and age, board size and board meetings. The study does not find any support to agency and resource dependence theories because the proportion of women directors in most Indian boards is too small to make much impact. However, it has a moderating influence to reduce variations in accounting profits and stock returns. The investors reward also meeting the regulatory quota of woman member on the boards by higher market returns indicating a signalling effect. The study adds an understanding of quota induced women directors’ influence on the firm’s financial outcomes. However, the regulators should be cautious in mandating induction of women members on the boards as they might be inexperienced or lack the needed grounding to effectively influence board processes.

Integration or segmentation of markets determines whether substantial advantages in risk reduction can be attained through portfolio diversification in foreign securities. In an integrated market, investors face risk from country-specific factors and factors, which are common to all countries, but price only the later, as country-specific risk is diversifiable. The aim of this study is two-fold, firstly, investigating the superiority of the Fama-French three-factor model over Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and later using the superior model to test for integration of Indian and US equity markets (a proxy for global markets). Based on a sample of Bombay Stock Exchange 500 non-financial companies for the period 2003–2019, the data suggest the superiority of Fama-French three-factor model over CAPM. Using the Non-Linear Seemingly Unrelated Regression technique, the first half of the sample period (2003–2010) shows evidence of market segmentation; however, the second sub-period (2011–2019) shows weak signs of market integration, which is supported by the Johansen test of cointegration, suggesting that Indian market is gradually getting integrated with global markets.

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Purpose The existing literature point that the presence of women directors in a firm reduces its risk. However, the relation between boardroom gender diversity and a firm’s return is widely disputed leading to no concrete answer. Some studies mention that women directors have a positive impact on firm performance, whereas, on the other hand, some findings suggest that women directors reduce financial performance. This paper aims to study the relationship of firm risk and return with boardroom gender diversity and the net impact on firm performance in the Indian context. This study uses not only traditional measures of risk and return but also the third measure of risk-adjusted returns to postulate its findings. Design/methodology/approach Based upon the data of the top 100 of the Bombay Stock Exchange-500 firms for the period FY 2009–2010 to FY 2018–2019, this study applied fixed effect panel regression and random effects Tobit regression to examine the effect of board gender diversity on firm performance. Findings The study concludes that firms with women directors on board have lower risk and lower returns. It also results in a higher risk-adjusted return, creating a positive impact on a firm’s performance. Originality/value The paper contributes to the existing literature on corporate governance by considering return, risk and risk-adjusted returns in single research to have a holistic measure of firm performance. It provides empirical evidence from one of the largest emerging economies, India where the female director and independent female director have been introduced recently.