We find that executives who jump to chief executive officer (CEO) positions at new employers come from firms that exhibit above-average stock price performance. This relationship is more pronounced for more senior executives. No such relationship exists for jumps to non-CEO positions. Stock options and restricted stock do not appear to significantly affect the likelihood of jumping ship, but the existence of an "heir apparent" on the management team increases the likelihood that executives will leave for non-CEO positions elsewhere. Hiring grants used to attract managers are correlated with the equity position forfeited at the prior employer and with the prior employer's performance.

[In a large panel of Compustat firms, we find that firm policy changes after exogenous CEO departures do not display abnormally high levels of variability, casting doubt on the presence of idiosyncratic-style effects in policy choices. After endogenous CEO departures, we do detect abnormally large policy changes. These changes are larger when the firm is likely to draw from a deeper pool of replacement CEO candidates, suggesting the presence of causal-style effects that are anticipated by the board. Our evidence suggests that managerial styles are not transferred across employers and that standard F-tests are inappropriate for identifying style effects.]

[We find a significant positive relation between a firm's advertising spending in the United States and its contemporaneous foreign cash flow. This relation holds even after controlling for factors that should be related to the optimal level of domestic advertising, and it is stronger for subsets of firms that we expect to be relatively more financially constrained. Our evidence supports the hypothesis that there is a causal and economically substantial link between cash flow and investment spending, even for intangible investments such as advertising. Our evidence also suggests that firms have active internal capital markets in which capital is moved across geographic regions.]

We find that executives who jump to chief executive officer (CEO) positions at new employers come from firms that exhibit above-average stock price performance. This relationship is more pronounced for more senior executives. No such relationship exists for jumps to non-CEO positions. Stock options and restricted stock do not appear to significantly affect the likelihood of jumping ship, but the existence of an “heir apparent” on the management team increases the likelihood that executives will leave for non-CEO positions elsewhere. Hiring grants used to attract managers are correlated with the equity position forfeited at the prior employer and with the prior employer's performance.

In a large panel of Compustat firms, we find that firm policy changes after exogenous CEO departures do not display abnormally high levels of variability, casting doubt on the presence of idiosyncratic-style effects in policy choices. After endogenous CEO departures, we do detect abnormally large policy changes. These changes are larger when the firm is likely to draw from a deeper pool of replacement CEO candidates, suggesting the presence of causal-style effects that are anticipated by the board. Our evidence suggests that managerial styles are not transferred across employers and that standard F-tests are inappropriate for identifying style effects.

We find a significant positive relation between a firm's advertising spending in the United States and its contemporaneous foreign cash flow. This relation holds even after controlling for factors that should be related to the optimal level of domestic advertising, and it is stronger for subsets of firms that we expect to be relatively more financially constrained. Our evidence supports the hypothesis that there is a causal and economically substantial link between cash flow and investment spending, even for intangible investments such as advertising. Our evidence also suggests that firms have active internal capital markets in which capital is moved across geographic regions. The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]., Oxford University Press.