The lack of women at board level is the least of our problems

Quotas for women in the boardroom threaten to introduce yet more of the meddlesome regulation that's keeping companies away from the stockmarket, argues Matthew Lynn.

There are many problems facing stockmarkets right now. Returns for investors are miserable, with most major markets languishing below their levels of a decade ago. Companies are rarely bothering to list any more. Chief executives take an ever bigger share of the spoils, leaving less and less on the table for shareholders. In many ways, the stockmarket as a vehicle for bringing together people with spare capital and people with ideas for how to invest it productively, looks broken.

And what fix do the regulators come up with? Apparently the real issue that needs to be addressed is how we can get more women onto the boards of public companies. But this isn't an issue at all.

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Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn is a columnist for Bloomberg, and writes weekly commentary syndicated in papers such as the Daily Telegraph, Die Welt, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Miami Herald. He is also an associate editor of Spectator Business, and a regular contributor to The Spectator. Before that, he worked for the business section of the Sunday Times for ten years. 

He has written books on finance and financial topics, including Bust: Greece, The Euro and The Sovereign Debt Crisis and The Long Depression: The Slump of 2008 to 2031. Matthew is also the author of the Death Force series of military thrillers and the founder of Lume Books, an independent publisher.