No woman, no aggressive tax planning? A study on CEO gender and effective tax rates in the Lithuanian retail sector

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether switching to a CEO of the opposite sex affects the tax aggressiveness of firms.

Design/methodology/approach

Regression analysis using a difference in difference approach and propensity score matching on a dataset of 8,798 firms from 2007 to 2017.

Findings

The authors find evidence that switching to a female CEO reduces the effective tax rate paid, implying a higher level of tax aggressiveness.

Social implications

The findings contradict the narrative that female CEOs are less tax aggressive.

Originality/value

The authors are the first (to the best of the authors' knowledge) to specifically investigate if changing the CEO gender has an impact on the effective tax rate paid by the firm.

Citation

Zirgulis, A., Huettinger, M. and Misiunas, D. (2022), "No woman, no aggressive tax planning? A study on CEO gender and effective tax rates in the Lithuanian retail sector", Review of Behavioral Finance, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 394-409. https://doi.org/10.1108/RBF-09-2020-0232