Female CEOs and the compensation of other top managers.

We study the implications of having a female chief executive officer (CEO) for the compensation levels of other top managers of a firm. Extant theoretical perspectives, such as social identity theory, gendered notions of firm status, and loss of diversity benefits, among others, make competing predictions about the effect of having a female, as opposed to a male, CEO: (a) that only female top managers may earn more, (b) that both female and male top managers may earn less, and (c) that only female top managers may earn less. Using over 20 years of data on the top management teams (TMTs) of the largest 1,500 U.