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Maybe I'm missing something but I'm not understanding how one reaches statistical significance when this bill was signed into law only 3 months ago? Do board members have so much of an impact that one fiscal quarter can prove that this gender quota is responsible for a -1.4% return as stated in the paper?

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A large enough sample size can find statistical significance in anything.

Also, this is a question will well understood theoretical backing. If you consider the entire law as an experiment, it is probably best to view this as a preliminary report, not a final result. Similarly to how no one thinks twice when CERN gets excited about a bump in their data, only to find out later that it turned out to be a statistical fluke.

But there’s also an assumption here that 3 months is long enough to have a measurable impact, rather than that quarter’s results being largely dictated by decisions made earlier.

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