A Fast Literature Search Engine based on top-quality journals, by Dr. Mingze Gao.
- Topic classification is ongoing.
- Please kindly let me know [mingze.gao@mq.edu.au] in case of any errors.
Your search
Results 17 resources
-
What makes a successful CEO? We combine a near-exhaustive sample of male CEOs from Swedish companies with data on their cognitive and noncognitive ability and height at age 18. CEOs differ from other high-skill professions most in noncognitive ability. The median large-company CEO belongs to the top 5% of the population in the combination of the three traits. The traits have a monotonic and close to linear relation with CEO pay, but their correlations with pay, firm size, and CEO fixed effects in firm policies are relatively low. Traits appear necessary but not sufficient for making it to the top.
-
We study managerial incentive provision under moral hazard when growth opportunities arrive stochastically and pursuing them requires a change in management. A trade‐off arises between the benefit of always having the “right” manager and the cost of incentive provision. The prospect of growth‐induced turnover limits the firm's ability to rely on deferred pay, resulting in more front‐loaded compensation. The optimal contract may insulate managers from the risk of growth‐induced dismissal after periods of good performance. The evidence for the United States broadly supports the model's predictions: Firms with better growth prospects experience higher CEO turnover and use more front‐loaded compensation.
-
We build a comparable and bottom-up measure of CEO labor supply for 1,114 CEOs and investigate whether family and professional CEOs differ along this dimension. Family CEOs work 9% fewer hours relative to professional CEOs. CEO hours worked are positively correlated with firm performance and account for 18% of the performance gap between family and professional CEOs. We study the sources of the differences in labor supply across family and professional CEOs by exploiting firm and industry heterogeneity and variation in meteorological and sports events. Evidence suggests that family CEOs value or can pursue leisure activities more so than professional CEOs.
-
Personal managerial indiscretions are separate from a firm's business activities but provide information about the manager's integrity. Consequently, they could affect counterparties’ trust in the firm and the firm's value and operations. We find that companies of accused executives experience significant wealth deterioration, reduced operating margins, and lost business partners. Indiscretions are also associated with an increased probability of unrelated shareholder-initiated lawsuits, Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and managed earnings. Further, chief executive officers and boards face labor market consequences, including forced turnover, pay cuts, and lower shareholder votes at re-election. Indiscretions occur more often at poorly governed firms where disciplinary turnover is less likely.
-
We empirically assess industry tournament incentives for CEOs, as measured by the compensation gap between a CEO at one firm and the highest-paid CEO among similar (industry, size) firms. We find that firm performance, firm risk, and the riskiness of firm investment and financial policies are positively associated with the external industry pay gap. The industry tournament effects are stronger when industry, firm, and executive characteristics indicate high CEO mobility and a higher probability of the aspirant executive winning.
-
We examine the effect of competition shocks induced by major industry-level tariff cuts on forced CEO turnover. Both the likelihood of forced CEO turnover and its sensitivity to performance increase. These effects are stronger for firms exposed to greater predation risk and with products more similar to those of other firms. CEOs are more likely to be forced out in weak governance firms; however, in good governance firms, CEOs are offered higher incentive pay. New outside CEOs receive higher incentive pay and come from firms with lower cost structures and higher asset sales. Performance and productivity improve after forced turnover.
-
We find that CEOs release 20% more discretionary news items in months in which they are expected to sell equity, predicted using scheduled vesting months. These vesting months are determined by equity grants made several years prior and thus unlikely to be driven by the current information environment. The increase arises for positive news, but not neutral or negative news, nor nondiscretionary news. News releases fall in the month before and month after the vesting month. News in vesting months generates a temporary increase in stock prices and market liquidity, which the CEO exploits by cashing out shortly afterwards.
-
We exploit variation in the cultural heritage across U.S. CEOs who are the children or grandchildren of immigrants to demonstrate that the cultural origins of CEOs matter for corporate outcomes. Following shocks to industry competition, firms led by CEOs who are second- or third-generation immigrants are associated with a 6.2% higher profitability compared with the average firm. This effect weakens over successive immigrant generations and cannot be detected for top executives apart from the CEO. Additional analysis attributes this effect to various cultural values that prevail in a CEO’s ancestral country of origin.
-
We find that the number of independent directors on corporate boards increases by approximately 24% following financial covenant violations in credit agreements. Most of these new directors have links to creditors. Firms that appoint new directors after violations are more likely to issue new equity, and to decrease payout, operational risk, and CEO cash compensation, than firms without such appointments. We conclude that a firm's board composition, governance, and policies are shaped by current and past credit agreements.
-
Using a hand-collected sample of election nominations for more than 30,000 directors over the period 2001–2010, we construct a novel measure of director proximity to elections called Years-to-election. We find that the closer directors of a board are to their next elections, the higher CEO turnover-performance sensitivity is. A series of tests, including one that exploits variation in Years-to-election that comes from other boards, supports a causal interpretation. Further analyses show that other governance mechanisms do not drive the relation between board Years-to-election and CEO turnover-performance sensitivity. We conclude that director elections have important implications for corporate governance.