This year, I attended the presentation of Eckbo’s new paper “Does Gender-Balancing the Board Reduce Firm Value?” http://ssrn.com/abstract=2746786
Though authors tried to be nice to Ahern Dittmar’s QJE paper, it’s very clear that Ahern Dittmar paper is totally the result of data-massage if you read the paper carefully.
I actually did not believe Ahern Dittmar's results very strong results several years ago. Boards of directors generally are a minor issue, not to mention gender of directors.
I am sad about this and our profession because even leading researchers with tenure are doing this kind of dirty tricks, not to mention other researchers.
Ken and Amy, can you reply this and defend yourselves?
Ahern, Kenneth R., and Amy Dittmar, 2012, The changing of the boards: The impact on firm valuation of mandated female board representation, Quarterly Journal of Economics 127, 1–60.