A Diversidade de Gênero Pode Afetar a Liquidez e o Risco de Companhias?

The gender diversity in boardrooms and high management positions of firms is a subject that has been gaining visibility, since it started to be seen as a corporate governance practice, regarding the participation in monitoring committees and the better disclosure of information. Thus, this paper sought to verify how gender diversity, through the participation of female directors and executives, impacts on the accounting liquidity and risk of companies listed in the Brazilian stock exchange. An analysis of unbalanced panel data was performed using the Generalized Method of Moments, considering 234 companies in the period from 2010 to 2016. Results showed that the number of women in those positions still small, and that the proportion of female directors is negatively linked to liquidity and positively linked to risk, contrary to much of the literature. For the proportion of female executives, the relation to liquidity was significant and positive. It can be inferred that female directors act as a corporate governance mechanism, being more confident and encouraging the risk-taking in order to meet the interests of shareholders, while female executives tend to be less confident, protecting their positions.


Introduction
The gender diversity in boardrooms and high management positions of firms is a subject that has been gaining visibility recently, since the increasing participation of females in a mostly male environment started to be seen as a corporate governance practice. Regarding this issue, Adams and Ferreira (2009) showed that female directors have better attendance records and are more likely to join monitoring committees than male directors, and Abad, Lucas-Pérez, Minguez-Vera, & Yagüe (2017) revealed that gender diversified boards improve the quantity and quality of public disclosure by firms, leading to a reinforcement in the companies' governance.
Beyond corporate governance, the gender diversity concept has also been discussed regarding the financial performance of firms. Liu, Wei, & Xie (2014) verified this connection, finding a positive relation between gender diversity and performance, and detected that boards with three or more female directors have a stronger impact in the performance than boards with less than three females. Moreover, Ahmed and Ali (2017) confirmed the efficiency of boards with greater gender diversity, showing that a higher stock liquidity can be achieved through an efficient monitoring by the boardrooms.
Despite the rising quantity of researches focusing on gender diversity in the companies, probably all of the studies face the same issue: the small quantity of females in boardrooms around the world.
According to the Corporate Women Directors International (CWDI) (2015), in a study released in 2015,

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Revista BASEv.16,n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 19,2% of the board members in North America were women. Similar results were found in Europe (20%), but, in other regions, the participation of females was even fewer: in the Asia-Pacific region, 9,4% of the board members were females, and in Latin America, this percentage was of only 6,4%. Globally, gender diversity in corporate boards is increasing, but not in Latin America; and in Brazil, the average participation of women in the boards was of 6,3%, while over 40% of the female directors had family ties to the company (CWDI, 2015).
The small participation of women in firms' top positions had already been pointed out by Kanter (1977), which argued that females were treated as tokens, that is, an individual that is the only representative of a particular demographic group, such as gender or race; so they did not had the chance to participate equally in the decision-making process for being considered as representative "objects". In order to increase the proportion of females in the firms' boardrooms, and consequently reduce the tokenism and the gender inequalities, many countries have been adopting mandatory rules, such as Norway, France, Spain, Italy and Netherlands (IBGC, 2013). In Brazil, since 2010 a bill that aims to increase to a minimum of 40% the participation of females in the boardrooms of public firms has been going through the legislative, but the process is not over yet (Brasil, 2010).
Considering the presented background, this paper aims to identify how gender diversity affects the companies' performance, verifying the influence of the female participation, as directors and executives, on the accounting liquidity and risk of firms listed in the Brazilian Stock Exchange (B3). It is important to inform that Brazilian papers linking accounting, liquidity and gender diversity were not found; however, there are few studies related to gender and firm performance in the country, being possible to emphasize the papers of Silva and Margem (2015), Segura, Formigoni, Abreu, & Costa (2016), Vaccari and Beuren (2017) and Silva Júnior and Martins (2017).
Data regarding boardrooms, directors and executives were collected from the Brazilian Securities Exchange Commission (CVM), and the sample included 234 companies in the period between 2010 and 2016, since the CVM information disclosure started in 2010. The dependent variables, accounting liquidity and risk, and the control variables were taken from the ECONOMATICA database. It was identified that women as directors have a negative impact on accounting liquidity, while female executives increase the firms' liquidity. For risk, only one variable related to gender was significant, women as directors, and has Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 For example, when examining the influence of gender in financial decisions of micro and small start-ups firms in Spain, Hernandez-Nicolas, Martín-Ugedo, & Mínguez-Vera (2015) argued that these companies have large problems in security funding and the owners' and managers' characteristics play a crucial role in obtaining financing. The authors verified the level, the cost and the maturity of debt, and identified that the presence of females, as CEOs or as board members, leads to a lower debt financing, reduces the cost of debt and increases the debt maturity, showing that the participation of women can improve the financial situation of a firm and also increases the firm's liquidity, since they prefer long-term debt.
As well, Zeng and Wang (2015) related the gender of CEOs of Chinese listed firms with the corporate cash holdings, what is also connected to a firm's liquidity. Considering a sample of 468 firms from 2007 to 2011, the authors found that female CEOs were related with a higher level of cash holdings, and cared less about the opportunity cost of cash than their male counterparts.Using a sample of Tunisian listed firms, Loukil and Yousfi (2016) studied the gender diversity on firms' boardrooms and its impact on the risk-taking, in the period from 1997 to 2010. The authors linked the risk perception with the firm's liquidity, and found that the presence of women in the boardrooms, even if there is only one female director, is positively associated with the cash ratio, what ensure a certain liquidity level and reduces the risk behavior. Similarly, Adhikari (2018) found that firms with more females in their top executive teams tend to hold more cash as a proportion of total assets, but the author related the result with the risk-aversion behavior, which is usually conceived as a female characteristic.
Beyond the direct relation between gender and liquidity in firms, authors have added a concept from the psychology that is widely used in behavioral finance researches to explain this relation: the overconfidence. Usually, it is expected that males are more overconfident than females, and like to embrace competition while females refuse it (Niederle & Vesterlund, 2007). Huang and Kisgen (2013) brought the gender differences regarding overconfidence to the corporate finance. Using a sample of US listed firms in the period from 1993 to 2005, they studied the impact of the CEO's and CFO's gender on the financial and investment decisions of firms. The authors found that male executives perform more acquisitions and issue debt in a higher frequency than female executives, what suggests that, even in the corporate decisions, men exhibit more overconfidence when compared to women. Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 Moreover, without considering gender, Huang, Tan, & Faff (2016) examined whether and at what extent the CEO's overconfidence affect the firm's debt maturity decisions, e.g., if they prefer short-term debt or long-term debt. They found that overconfident CEOs change the debt maturity structure using a higher proportion of very short-term debt. Besides, authors showed that this action is not threatened by the existing liquidity risk of firms that take a large amount of short-term debt, that is, overconfident CEOs are not afraid of suffering from illiquidity.
Connecting the studies from Huang and Kisgen (2013), which suggested that male leaders reduces the liquidity, and Huang et al. (2016), which appointed that overconfident leaders also reduces the liquidity, it is possible to expect that, if the CEO is male, he is overconfident and can cause a reduction in the liquidity. Meanwhile, it is expected that a female CEO is less overconfident and can lead to a higher liquidity. Based on the researches presented, which relate gender and liquidity, the first and the second hypotheses of this paper were prepared, H1 and H2:

Gender Diversity and Risk
The relation between gender diversity and risk has been widely explored in the financial literature, but still there is no consensus about the issue. To explain this relation, it is important to bring results found on researches from psychology, that are frequently used in the behavioral finances. Studies like Byrnes, Miller, and Schafer (1999), Weber, Blais, and Betz (2002), Harris, Jenkins, and Glaser (2006), Charness and Gneezy (2012) and Sarin and Wieland (2016), have tried to explain the relation between gender and the risk propensity, that is, the implementation of choices that could lead to negative consequences, where prevailed the idea that women are more risk averse than men. Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 In the corporate finance, Berger, Kick, and Schaeck (2014) verified how the gender composition of executive teams, among other variables, affected the portfolio risk of the German banking industry between 1994 and 2010. Results suggested that board changes, which increase the representation of female executives, do not lead to a reduction in the portfolio risk. Instead, a higher proportion of female executives increased the portfolio risk measurements, even though the coefficients were only marginally significant.
These findings do not coincide with psychological studies that appointed women as more risk averse than men, such as Byrnes et al. (1999).
An important contribution to the issue was made by Adams and Funk (2012), which studied the gender differences between male and female directors and CEOs, considering a sample of 628 individuals.
The authors explained that most of studies regarding gender differences usually consider students, workers, the general population, so it is not clear to what extent women at the top of corporate positions really are different from men. In their research, results showed that even at the top positions, there are behavioral differences between males and females: male directors focus more on achievement and power than women, and less on benevolence. However, unlike the prior literature, women in the boardrooms focus less about security than men, and are slightly more risk loving than their male counterparts (Adams & Funk, 2012).
From another point of view, Sila, Gonzalez, and Hagendorff (2015) examined the risk implications of gender diversity in the boards of 1.960 non-financial US firms between 1996 and 2010. They found no evidence that female board representation influences equity risk, and suggested that the lack of solid empirical evidence on the relationship between gender diversity in boards and risk does not make this diversity more or less desirable, because this issue is much more a case of fairness than pure economic considerations.
On the other hand, Gulamhussen and Santa (2015) investigated the role of women in bank boards, considering a sample of 461 large banks from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The authors found that the presence and proportion of women directors in the boards have a positive effect on the banks' performance, and detected that exists a negative relation between females in the board and risk-taking.

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Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 A similar influence was found in Baixauli-Soler, Belda-Ruiz, and Sanchez-Marin (2015), where companies with women in the top management team exhibit more conservative behavior and take less risk than firms without gender diversity in the top management team. Also, in Perryman, Fernando, and Tripathy (2016), and in Faccio, Marchica, and Mura (2016), it was found that transitions from male to female CEOs are linked with significant reductions in corporate risk-taking. Furthermore, Palvia, Vähämaa, and Vähämaa (2015) argued that a female CEO or chairperson promotes more conservative strategies, leading to a lower asset risk in U. S. commercial banks.
Based on the literature presented, and given the fact that there is no consensus in the literature about this issue, the second group of hypotheses was prepared, H3 and H4, with their alternative hypotheses, H3A and H4A.

Research Methodology
This paper is labeled as a descriptive research, according to Triviños (1987), because it aims to describe facts and events of a given situation. The descriptive research implies the use of hypotheses that Can Gender Diversity Influence Liquidity and Risk of Companies? ____________________________________________________________________________________ 622 Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 were described in the previous section. It is also a quantitative research, since it uses a large sample and the results can be quantified through mathematical and statistical methods (Fonseca, 2002). It was used secondary data from the companies listed in the Brazilian Stock Exchange (B3) Regarding statistical analysis, at first it was performed a correlation test among the variables used, and then proceeded to the descriptive statistics. Later, to verify the influence of women in the boardroom and as executives on the liquidity and risk of companies, it was used an unbalanced panel data by Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), attributed to Hansen (1982). Specifically, it was applied the dynamic, which considers the lagged dependent variable as an explanatory variable, and in-differences model (GMM-Sys). The instruments used were the explanatory variables lagged in one and two periods, as proposed by Almeida, Campello, and Galvão (2010). When there are more than three observations by each cross-sectional unity, additional instruments are available. If the model has T>3 and the error term in first differences presents serial correlation of first order, assuming that the equations' error terms are not correlated, the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) estimators are not asymptotically efficient even if the complete set of instruments is used (Bond, 2002).
In such case, the GMM provides a convenient structure to the achievement of asymptotically efficient instruments, as the In Difference GMM (GMM-Dif) and the System GMM (GMM-Sys).
Theoretically, the difference between the two estimators lies in the conditions of moment used in each estimator, which implies in a bigger or smaller set of instruments available in those approaches. The conditions of moment depend on the suppositions regarding the initial condition of the model's series.
Thus, the set of instruments available in the GMM-Sys estimator is larger and allows more precise estimates in certain contexts, however, the assumptions in relation to the initial conditions are more restrictive. In this case, it is supposed that the initial conditions satisfy the property of stationarity in mean,

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Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 so that the series have constant mean for each individual i. This specification implies that for i=1, 2, …, N, which, given the model's autoregressive structure and the supposition that for i = 1, 2, …, N and t = 3, 4, …, T, implies the following T-2 non-redundant conditions of moment: for i = 1, 2, …, N, and t = 3, 4, …, T, additional to those specified for the first-difference equations. So, in the case of the GMM-Sys, beyond the available instruments for the GMM-Dif estimator, the variables in difference can be used as instruments for the equations in level.
According to Bond (2002), the GMM-Sys estimator has a much lower bias of finite samples and much higher precision when it is necessary to estimate autoregressive parameters using series with high persistence, being more suitable for the analysis. Finally, it is highly recommended to investigate the properties of the time series of the individual series when it is used the GMM estimators for dynamic panel models (Bond, 2002). The dynamic model is obtained using the lagged endogenous variable as explanatory in the model. In the case, following Mátyás (1999), the efficiency gains allowed by the homoscedasticity condition are reduced with the analysis of dynamic panels, being possible to dismiss the condition, since it has a more robust assumption. To perform the analysis, the following tests were used: (i) Arellano and Bond (1991) test, which verify the existence of serial autocorrelation in the sample; (ii) qui-square test (X²); and, (iii) the Hansen J (1982) over-identification test. The following equations (1) and (2) show the regression models that attend the hypotheses previously described.
In equation (1), L represents the firm's Liquidity, and in (2) R is the firm's Risk. For both equations, ∝ is the intercept, , , µ and are the variables' coefficients, WDir is the first independent variable, related to the participation of women in the boardroom, and is the second independent variable, the proportion of female executives on the firm. C is related to the control variables and is the error term,

Analysis of Results
Before performing the main analysis, the correlation test was applied to the variables selected to compose the model. The results can be seen in Table 1.
As presented in Table 1, the variables chosen to compose the model did not present a high correlation value (above 0,7) between each other. Next, after winsorizing the variables at 5%, the descriptive statistics were performed, and the results are shown in Table 2. The first dependent variable, Liquidity, had a positive mean (8,8%) and a small standard deviation, which shows that, on average, the

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Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 firms had a cash increase during the period. Risk, the second dependent variable, also had a positive mean (7,3%) and a small standard deviation. The mean and the median (p50) had close values.
Observing the independent variables, the results for women as directors (WDir) showed that, on average, only 7,9% of the directors in the companies were females. For women as executives (WExec), 7,1% of the executives were females, on average. The last variable considering gender is women as independent directors (WIn), which indicated that only 4,3% of the independent directors were women.
For the three gender variables, means and medians were quite similar, since a small number of companies had a woman in its boardroom or as an executive, indicating the weak gender diversity in Brazilian firms.
The study by Margem (2013)  The average number of members in the board of directors (BS) was around 6,55 members, and the biggest boardroom had 19 members. Regarding the number of executives (TE), the average number was of 4,48 executives and the firm with the greatest amount had 33 members. On average, the number of independent directors (InDir) in a boardroom was of only 1,43, and the firm with the greatest number had 13 independent members. The mean and median values were quite close for these variables. Concerning the performance variables, the companies had, on average, a market value that exceeds the total assets on 55% (Tobin's Q) and the mean value for ROA was positive (0,9%), which showed that the firms may be reaching positive net profits. Relating to tangibility (Tang), the companies had around 24,9% of tangible assets in relation to the total assets.

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Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 Regarding leverage (Lev), for each R$ 1,00 of equity, the companies had a non-operational debt of R$ 0,91. The mean of the total assets (TA) was of R$ 3.063 billion, while its median was of R$ 978.075 million, and the high values for standard deviation and variance suggested the use of logarithm in the model. Regarding the cash flow risk (CFR), the mean was around -1,3%, while the median was of -0,08%, showing that firms did not present a high variation in their cash, reducing the uncertainty in relation to the cash retention. For dividends (Div), the average dividend payout ratio was about 35,3% of the net profit, while the median was around 17,4%. Finally, the mean value for the capital expenditure (CE) indicated that the fixed assets of the firms represented 5,1% of their total assets, while the median was of 3,9%. The next step in the analysis aimed to verify the impact of the gender diversity on liquidity and risk, through the use of the GMM-sys method, as shown in Table 3. 1,369 --0,171 -0,996 --0,319 Note. L1 = dynamic variable (lag of the dependent variable), WDir = women as directors, WExec = women as executives, WIn = women as independent directors, WChair = woman as chairperson, BS = total number of members in the board, TE = total number of executives, InDir = total number of independent directors in the board, Dual = duality CEOxChairman, Q = Tobin's Q, ROA = return on assets, Tang = tangibility, Lev = leverage, LTA = logarithm of total assets, CFR = cash flow risk, Div = dividends, CE = capital expenditures, cons = constant. * = significant at 10%, ** = significant at 5%, *** = significant at 1% Table 3. Regression analysis using GMM-sys: impact of the gender diversity on liquidity and risk Source: Prepared by the authors (2018).
The Arellano and Bond (1991) test (Ar1 and Ar2) for liquidity and risk indicated that the models do not reject the null hypothesis of no serial correlation in the first order residuals, and this serial correlation in first order justifies the use of a dynamic model such as GMM-sys. The Hansen test (1982) does not reject the null hypothesis for both cases, which shows that there are no specification problems in the instrumental variables. As suggested by Almeida et al. (2010), the lagged independent variables were used as instruments. Lastly, it was applied the Chi-square test (Chi2), which rejected the null hypothesis and indicated that there is an association within the group of variables for both cases.
Analyzing the results for the liquidity regression, only two gender variables were significant.
Women as directors (WDir) had a significance level of 5% and a negative impact on the firm's liquidity,

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Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 where the increase of 1% in the proportion of females in the boardroom reduces in 0,28% the liquidity.
Otherwise, the variable women as executives (WExec), significant at 10%, had a positive impact on liquidity, where a growth of 1% in the number of female executives increases the liquidity of the firms in around 0,18%. For women as independent directors (WIn), an increase of 1% in the number of female independent directors would raise the liquidity in about 0,11%, but the variable did not reach the significance level.
The negative relation between the variable women as directors and firms' liquidity was not expected, contradicting the studies by Hernandez-Nicolas et al. (2015) and Loukil and Yousfi (2016), while the positive impact of women in top management positions on the liquidity of firms agreed with the literature exposed previously. For example, Zeng and Wang (2015) found out that female CEO's are connected to a higher level of cash holdings and don't mind much about the opportunity costs of cash, and Adhikari (2018) found that firms with more female executives tend to hold more cash as a proportion of total assets.This way, it can be said that female directors and executives behave in a different way. Could be the case that, as a corporate governance mechanism, the female directors are inclined to attend the shareholders' interests and take a more confident position, suggesting a smaller retention of cash and reducing the firms' liquidity; whilst the female executives would be more careful in financial and investment decisions, holding more cash and leading to an increase in the liquidity, a confidence issue pointed by Huang and Kisgen (2013).
The board size (BS) variable was significant at the level of 10%, and the increase of 1% in the size of boards leads to an increase of 0,01% in the liquidity. This result reflects Gill and Shah's (2012) findings, which affirmed that a larger boardroom can lead to an excessive cash holding in firms, consequently increasing the liquidity; however, possibly leaving aside the preferences of the shareholders. Tobin's Q (Q) was significantat the level of 5%, and an increase of 1% on it raises the liquidity in 0,02%, an expected result, being in accordance with John (1993) and Feng, Lu, and Wang (2017), suggesting that a higher growth opportunity will enhance the firm's liquidity. The cash flow risk (CFR) variable was also significant at 5%, and an increase of 1% in the variable increases the liquidity in 0,21%. The relation between the variables reflects the exposed by Dutra, Sonza, Ceretta, and Galli (2018), which stated that Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 an increase in the cash flow risk appoints to a higher need of cash to ensure it, increasing the firm's liquidity.
Finally, it was performed the regression for risk and only one variable regarding gender diversity was significant. Women as directors (WDir) had a significance level of 10% and a positive impact on risk, where an increase of 1% in the number of female directors increases the firm's risk in 0,24%. This finding contradicts Sila et al. (2015) and Gulamhussen and Santa (2015), which stated that female directors are linked to a lower risk level on firms, while also go against much of the psychology literature. However, Adams and Funk (2012) brought a significant support to the risk behavior of female directors, affirming that most of the studies regarding the subject surveys the general population, were the men tend to be more risk-loving than women. However, the authors' research suggested that women in leadership positions do not satisfy the gender stereotypes, having a higher willingness to take risks than their male colleagues.
Furthermore, females in the general population may have significantly different values from women who reached their director positions in the competitive market for directors (Adams & Funk, 2012).
The variable Board Size (BS)was significant at the level of 5%, and an increase on its value reduces the risk in 0,01%, an impact that agrees with Yermack (1996) and Loukil and Yousfi (2015), which stated that a bigger board size has a slower decision-making and is biased against risk-raking. Again, Tobin's Q (Q) was significant at the level of 5% and impacted on the risk positively, leading to an increase of 0,02%. This result goes against Shin and Stulz (2000) and Sila et al. (2015), which found a negative relationship between risk and Tobin's Q. Probably, in the sample, a higher growth opportunity will end up inducing an increase in risk-taking, hoping to raise the shareholder value in the future. Lastly, return on assets (ROA) was significant at 1%, and has a negative impact, where a growth of 1% on the returns reduces the risk in 0,75%, indicating that firms with higher profitability tend to be less risky (Huang et al., 2016).

Conclusions and Contributions
This paper sought to verify the impact of females as directors and as executives on the accounting liquidity and on the risk of 234 companies listed in the Brazilian Stock Exchange. Regarding the findings, a greater participation of female directors reduces the level of liquidity in firms, doubting the idea that Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 women are less overconfident that men, what could lead to a higher liquidity. This result indicates the rejection of the H1 hypothesis, and it is contrary to what was stated by Hernandez-Nicolas et al. (2015) and Loukil and Yousfi (2016), which proposed that female directors increase liquidity.
As an argument for this outcome is the fact that most of the studies investigated the behavior differences between genders considering the general population, while specific studies do not find that women are less overconfident than men (Deaves, Lüders, & Luo, 2009;Sila et al., 2016). In addition, this result can suggest that female directors work as an effective corporate governance mechanism, aiming to meet the interests of shareholders, while other mechanisms considered in the model, such as independent directors, women as independent directors, and women as chairperson, were not significant, thus, they do not affect the firm's liquidity in the sample studied.
Meanwhile, a higher proportion of female executives increases the level of liquidity in firms, demonstrating that the H2 hypothesis was not rejected and corroborating the findings of Huang and Kisgen (2013), Hernandez-Nicolas et al. (2015) and Zeng and Wang (2015). This can be explained by two points of view: first, executives in general are usually inclined to hold more cash; however, the variable total number of executives (TE) was not significant, leading to the second point of view, in which women as executives tend to hold even more cash than men, being less overconfident and increasing the liquidity.
In sequence, the H3 hypothesis was rejected, but its alternative confirmed, confirming the results of Adams and Funk (2012) and Berger et al. (2014). Considering that there is no consensus on the literature about this subject, it was found that female directors lead to an increase on the risk of firms, what can be explained by Deaves et al. (2009) andSila et al. (2016). As Adams and Funk (2012) affirmed, females in high positions such as members of a company's boardroom may present a behavior that is different from the expected to women in general and even show a higher disposition to face risks than their male counterparts. Regarding the H4 hypothesis, which assumes that female executives leads to a smaller risk and is based on the inferences by Baixauli-Soler et al. (2015), Perryman et al. (2016) and in Faccio et al. (2016), it was rejected, since its coefficient was not significant, even at the 10% level. The result for this variable agrees with the other variable regarding executives (TE), since both of them were not significant, suggesting that possibly there are no gender differences in the behavior of executives towards risk.

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Revista BASEv.16, n.4, outubro/dezembro 2019 As contributions, this paper brought the entanglement of financial terms, such as liquidity and risk, with psychological terms, such as gender differences, overconfidence and risk-taking, to the Brazilian perspective, a country where this kind of research still poorly explored. The approach to gender diversity raises the issue that, even nowadays, women have a small participation on high positions, despite the fact that they can contribute to increase the corporate governance level and the performance of companies.
However, the Brazilian law shows an effort to reduce the gender inequalities, even if the progress is slow. This is a field yet to be explored, since it is unknow how far the gender differences in behavior and its effect on the firm performance will persist, maybe until the proportion of men and women occupying these leadership positions with be equal. Then, possibly the relation between the variables will become clearer.
As limitations, it was considered the difficulty of comparing the results with other papers performed in Brazil, since the researches about this subject are sparse. Actually, it was difficult to find works approaching the specific issue between liquidity, risk and gender in other countries, because many studies try to link the gender diversity with firm performance in general. Another limitation is the fact that the relationship between gender and the dependent variables may be endogenous. Finally, as suggestions for future research, additional variables could be used to approach the issue, such as the educational level, the age and the previous professional experience of the female directors and executives, and could be questioned how these characteristics moderate the results towards liquidity and risk.