CFO Gender and Accruals Quality

The authors examine the association between chief financial officer (hereafter, CFO) gender and the quality of accruals. Based on findings in prior research on gender differences in a variety of decision settings-risk-taking attitudes, financial judgments, and regulatory compliances-they hypothesize that firms with female CFOs will have higher quality of accruals. The empirical findings, based on a sample of 1,559 (1,222) firms in 2005 (2004), support this hypothesis. The study shows that companies with female CFOs have lower performance-matched absolute discretionary accruals and lower absolute accrual estimation errors, after controlling for other factors that prior research has shown to be associated with accruals. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]