130 Vladan Pavlović 1 Goranka Knežević 2 Radica Bojičić 3 Volume 31(3), 2022 THE IMPACT OF GENDER AND AGE ON EARNINGS MANAGEMENT PRACTICES OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES – A CASE STUDY OF BELGRADE 4 The goal of this study is to investigate whether the gender and age of the director, the supervisory board chairman and other supervisory board members influence earnings management practices in public enterprises established by the Serbian capital city. We have found that the age of the directors and the age and gender of the board members appointed by the local authority are statistically insignificantly associated with earnings management practices. But the study reveals a huge gender inequality concerning the directors and supervisory board members appointed by the local authority and opens up a debate on whether supervisory board members are sufficiently qualified for the task assigned to them by Law. As a result of this research, we suggest several inputs for the ongoing public administration reform. Keywords: earnings management; gender; age; supervisory board; public enterprises; Serbia JEL: M41; M48; M14; G30; C33 1. Introduction Despite a long history of gender issues in the legislation of today’s European region, which dates back even to Ancient Roman times (Bauman, 2015; Vujović, 2017), the gender issue has been a hot topic in the EU, not only over the last decade but is also one of the priorities of the EU Commission for the coming years (European Commission, Legislative train, 11.2020). Namely, according to the new EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025, unblocking the ‘Women on Boards’ Directive Proposal has been declared as one of the 1 Vladan Pavlović, University of Pristina in Kosovska Mitrovica, Faculty of Economics, Serbia, e-mail: vladan.pavlovic@pr.ac.rs. 2 Goranka Knežević, Singidunum University, Faculty of Business, Belgrade, Serbia, e-mail: gknezevic@singidunum.ac.rs. 3 Radica Bojičić, University of Pristina in Kosovska Mitrovica, Faculty of Economics, Serbia, e-mail: radica.bojicic@pr.ac.rs. 4 The work has been funded by the Ministry of Science, Education and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia. This paper should be cited as: Pavlović, V., Knežević, G., Bojičić, R. (2022). The Impact of Gender and Age on Earnings Management Practices of Public Enterprises – A Case Study of Belgrade. – Economic Studies (Ikonomicheski Izsledvania), 31(3), pp. 130-148.