The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Sat, 18 Jul 2026 11:30:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Do Firms Respond to Gender Pay Gap Transparency? – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Do Firms Respond to Gender Pay Gap Transparency? https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/03/15/do-firms-respond-to-gender-pay-gap-transparency/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=do-firms-respond-to-gender-pay-gap-transparency https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2019/03/15/do-firms-respond-to-gender-pay-gap-transparency/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2019 12:57:08 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=115954?d=20190315085708EDT Posted by Margarita Tsoutsoura (Cornell University), on Friday, March 15, 2019
Editor's Note:

Margarita Tsoutsoura is the John and Dyan Smith Professor of Management and Family Business at the Cornell University SC Johnson College of Business. This post is based on a recent paper by Professor Tsoutsoura; Morten Bennedsen, the André and Rosalie Hoffmann Chaired Professor of Family Enterprise at INSEAD; Elena Simintzi, Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School; and Daniel Wolfenzon, the Stefan H. Robock Professor of Finance and Economics at Columbia Business School. This post is based on their recent paper.

Gender pay disparities characterize labor markets in most developed countries. When a man earns 100 dollars, a woman earns 77 in the United States, 78.5 dollars in Germany, 79 dollars in the United Kingdom, and 83.8 on average across European Union countries according to Eurostat.

Recent proposals across many countries focus on pay transparency to promote equal pay. Government-mandated reporting of gender pay discrepancies has been a subject of much debate: Governments often propose transparency as a tool to encourage firms to reduce the wage gap between men and women. Unions and employee groups representing women also seem to believe that secrecy on pay contributes significantly to unequal pay for women. Opponents of pay transparency argue that disclosing gender pay comes as a challenge to firms as it lacks practical utility, increases administrative burden, and violates employee privacy. Until recently there has been no systematic evidence to support either side.

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