I examine the role of geography in the labor market for CEOs. I begin by investigating the joint distribution of CEO state of origin and firm headquarters location and find that the frequency with which firms hire CEOs from their own state is five times more than is expected under a model where geography plays no role in the hiring process. When considering only external hiring decisions, this ...

We use linguistic algorithms to measure the extraversion of company executives based on their speech patterns during conference calls. We find extraverted executives earn significantly higher salaries. Extraverted CFOs are more often promoted to CEO, and extraverted CEOs are more likely to serve on outside boards. Analyzing executive transitions, we find that firms with extraverted CEOs garner ...

We show that CEOs exhibit a home bias in acquisitions. Firms are over twice as likely to acquire targets located in their CEOs’ home states than similar targets domiciled elsewhere. The bias is strongest for private targets and when acquirer governance is lax, and these private home deals do not create value, suggesting that CEOs acquire these targets for their own benefits. Unlike typical publ...

We adopt an interactionist logic to study the determinants of risk taking by chief executive officers (CEOs). We introduce the concept of ‘‘capability cues’’—contextual signals that decision makers might reasonably interpret as indicators of their current level of overall ability—arguing that positive cues will induce boldness, while negative cues will induce timidity. Then, drawing from prior ...

Recent empirical papers report a declining trend in the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) of acquirers during an M&A program. Does this necessarily imply that acquiring CEOs are infected by hubris and are not learning from previous mistakes? We first confirm the existence of this declining trend on average. However, we find a positive CAR trend for CEOs likely to be infected by hubris, which is ...

Research overwhelmingly shows that facial appearance predicts leader selection. However, the evidence on the relevance of faces for actual leader ability and consequently performance is inconclusive. By using a state-of-the-art, objective measure for face recognition, we test the predictive value of CEOs' faces for firm performance in a large sample of faces. We first compare the faces of Fortu...

partners and the CEOS space agencies. Through CEOP, CEOS will be able to contribute greatly to the understanding and prediction of the water cycle through the integrated use of satellites of CEOS members in cooperation with the IGOS partnership. CEOP represents a unique opportunity to improve the scientific basis needed to achieve overall water cycle documentation and prediction goals. Continue...

Marital status can both reflect and affect individual preferences. We explore the impact of marriage on corporate CEOs, and find that firms run by single CEOs exhibit higher stock return volatility, pursue more aggressive investment policies, and do not respond to changes in idiosyncratic risk. These effects are weaker for older CEOs. Our findings continue to hold when we use variation in divor...

The popular press and scholarly studies have noted a number of trends in corporate governance. This paper addresses, from a theoretical perspective, whether these trends are linked. And, if so, how? The paper finds that a trend toward greater board diligence will lead, sometimes through subtle or indirect mechanisms, to trends toward more external candidates becoming ceo, shorter tenures for ce...