The Impact of CFO Gender on Corporate Cash Holdings : An Experimental Test of Precautionary Savings and Agancy Theories in the Tehran Stock Exchange

Identifying the factors affecting cash holding is important because a deficit or surplus in cash holdings can cause companies to have many problems. Recent research has shown that one of the influential factors on cash holdings is the CFO gender. According to the precautionary Savings theory, senior female executives hold more cash because of their conservatism, lower self-esteem, and risk aversion. In contrast, according to agency theory, female senior executives are more ethical and reduce agency costs and thus hold less cash. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the effect of g CFO gender on cash holding, with regard to precautionary Savings and agancy theories. The research hypothesis was also investigated using a sample of 170 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the years 2012 to 2018 using multivariate regression model. The findings indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between CFO gender and cash holding according to the precautionary Savings theory. In other words, firms with senior female executives hold more cash than other companies. The results of the additional analysis also indicate that in larger firms, the relationship CFO gender and cash holding is weaker in older firms.