We examine how international cross-cultural variations in attitudes towards female executives affect the pricing of large, mostly syndicated business loans. In countries where skepticism and negative stereotypes about women’s managerial abilities prevail, firms led by female CFOs face significantly higher loan spreads than firms led by male CFOs. In these countries, female-led firms also receive loans of significantly smaller size than male-led firms. Our results provide first evidence of discrimination against women in the international, mostly syndicated business loan market. These results are robust to using different measures of cultural attitudes towards women in the labor market.
