This paper analyzes why gold mining firms use options instead of linear strategies to hedge their gold price risk. Consistent with financial constraints based theories, the largest and least financially constrained firms are the most likely to hedge with insurance strategies (put options), while more constrained firms finance the purchase of puts by selling calls (collars). The most financially constrained firms use strategies that involve selling calls. Firms with large investment programs are also more likely to use insurance rather than linear strategies. Firms’ hedging instrument choices are also correlated with current market conditions, suggesting that managers’ market views partially drive hedging instrument choices.

This paper shows how the credit risk premium affects firms' optimal hedging strategies. The model predicts that if the credit risk premium is relatively small, firms use convex hedging strategies. If the credit risk premium is relatively large, firms use concave hedging strategies. Firms in between those two extremes use strategies that feature both convex and concave elements, e.g. collar strategies. Finally, firms that are unlevered, invest little and are exposed to few non-hedgeable risks are the most likely to use linear approximations of the optimal strategy. The model replicates essentially all observed hedging strategies in the gold mining industry.

We use the financial crisis of 2007–2009 as a laboratory to examine the costs and benefits of teams versus single managers in asset management. We find that when a fund uses complex trading strategies involving the use of CDS team-managed funds outperform solo-managed funds. This may be due to the greater diversity of expertise, experience and skill of teams relative to single managers. During the financial crisis, however, the performance premium of teams becomes negative, which may be because of the slower decision times of teams, which are especially costly during times of rapidly changing market conditions.

We examine whether managerial overconfidence can help explain the observed discrepancies between the theory and practice of corporate risk management. We use a unique dataset of corporate derivatives positions that enables us to directly observe managerial reactions to their (speculative) gains and losses from market timing when they use derivatives. We find that managers increase their speculative activities using derivatives following speculative cash flow gains, while they do not reduce their speculative activities following speculative losses. This asymmetric response is consistent with the selective self-attribution associated with overconfidence. Our time series approach to measuring overconfidence complements cross-sectional approaches currently used in the literature. Our results show that managerial overconfidence, which has been found to influence a number of corporate decisions, also affects corporate risk management decisions.

The widespread practice of managers speculating by incorporating their market views into firms’ hedging programs (“selective hedging”) remains a puzzle. Using a 10-year sample of North American gold mining firms, we find no evidence that selective hedging is more prevalent among firms that are believed to possess an information advantage. In contrast, we find strong evidence that selective hedging is more prevalent among financially constrained firms, suggesting that this practice is driven by asset substitution motives. We detect weak relationships between selective hedging and some corporate governance measures but find no evidence of a link between selective hedging and managerial compensation.