IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/qjfxxx/v07y2017i02ns2010139217500045.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

CEO Social Status and Risk-Taking

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Shemesh

    (Department of Finance, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Melbourne, Australia)

Abstract

I examine whether changes in CEO status affect risk-related business decisions. I use prestigious awards as shocks to CEO status relative to other CEOs. Firms with award-winning CEOs decrease their idiosyncratic volatility, and their industry betas converge towards one. These firms also reduce their spending on research and development, while increasing investment in fixed assets relative to a matched sample of firms with non-winning CEOs. The evidence suggests that CEOs who reach higher status become more concerned about poor relative performance. By conforming to other firms in their industry, CEOs with the highest reputation can lock-in their relative advantage.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Shemesh, 2017. "CEO Social Status and Risk-Taking," Quarterly Journal of Finance (QJF), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(02), pages 1-35, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:qjfxxx:v:07:y:2017:i:02:n:s2010139217500045
    DOI: 10.1142/S2010139217500045
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010139217500045
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2010139217500045?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stein, Jeremy C, 1988. "Takeover Threats and Managerial Myopia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 61-80, February.
    2. Roberts, Kevin & Weitzman, Martin L, 1981. "Funding Criteria for Research, Development, and Exploration Projects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(5), pages 1261-1288, September.
    3. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    4. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1989. "Management entrenchment : The case of manager-specific investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 123-139, November.
    5. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    6. Cabral, Luis M. B., 2002. "Increasing Dominance with No Efficiency Effect," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 471-479, February.
    7. Blume, Marshall E, 1975. "Betas and Their Regression Tendencies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 30(3), pages 785-795, June.
    8. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2003. "Managing with Style: The Effect of Managers on Firm Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1169-1208.
    9. Brian J. Hall & Kevin J. Murphy, 2003. "The Trouble with Stock Options," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 49-70, Summer.
    10. Nikolai Roussanov, 2010. "Diversification and Its Discontents: Idiosyncratic and Entrepreneurial Risk in the Quest for Social Status," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1755-1788, October.
    11. Fessler, Daniel M.T. & Pillsworth, Elizabeth G. & Flamson, Thomas J., 2004. "Angry men and disgusted women: An evolutionary approach to the influence of emotions on risk taking," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 107-123, September.
    12. Brickley, James A. & Linck, James S. & Coles, Jeffrey L., 1999. "What happens to CEOs after they retire? New evidence on career concerns, horizon problems, and CEO incentives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 341-377, June.
    13. Suleyman Basak & Anna Pavlova & Alexander Shapiro, 2007. "Optimal Asset Allocation and Risk Shifting in Money Management," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(5), pages 1583-1621, 2007 21.
    14. Nieken, Petra & Sliwka, Dirk, 2010. "Risk-taking tournaments - Theory and experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 254-268, June.
    15. Richard H. Thaler & Eric J. Johnson, 1990. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 643-660, June.
    16. Abadie, Alberto & Imbens, Guido W., 2011. "Bias-Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(1), pages 1-11.
    17. Eli Ofek & David Yermack, 2000. "Taking Stock: Equity‐Based Compensation and the Evolution of Managerial Ownership," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1367-1384, June.
    18. Renée B. Adams & Heitor Almeida & Daniel Ferreira, 2005. "Powerful CEOs and Their Impact on Corporate Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1403-1432.
    19. Kevin Koh, 2011. "Value or Glamour? An empirical investigation of the effect of celebrity CEOs on financial reporting practices and firm performance," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 51(2), pages 517-547, June.
    20. Merton, Robert C, 1987. "A Simple Model of Capital Market Equilibrium with Incomplete Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(3), pages 483-510, July.
    21. Basak, Suleyman & Makarov, Dmitry & Shapiro, Alex & Subrahmanyam, Marti, 2020. "Security design with status concerns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    22. Bakshi, Gurdip S & Chen, Zhiwu, 1996. "The Spirit of Capitalism and Stock-Market Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(1), pages 133-157, March.
    23. Dirk Jenter, 2005. "Market Timing and Managerial Portfolio Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1903-1949, August.
    24. Gormley, Todd A. & Matsa, David A., 2016. "Playing it safe? Managerial preferences, risk, and agency conflicts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 431-455.
    25. Neil Niman, 2006. "Sexual Selection and Economic Positioning," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 21-33, April.
    26. Chakraborty, Atreya & Sheikh, Shahbaz & Subramanian, Narayanan, 2007. "Termination risk and managerial risk taking," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 170-188, March.
    27. Yermack, David, 2014. "Tailspotting: Identifying and profiting from CEO vacation trips," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 252-269.
    28. Brian J. Hall & Kevin J. Murphy, 2003. "The Trouble with Stock Options," NBER Working Papers 9784, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. Zwiebel, Jeffrey, 1995. "Corporate Conservatism and Relative Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(1), pages 1-25, February.
    30. Isen, Alice M. & Geva, Nehemia, 1987. "The influence of positive affect on acceptable level of risk: The person with a large canoe has a large worry," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 145-154, April.
    31. Taylor, Jonathan, 2003. "Risk-taking behavior in mutual fund tournaments," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 373-383, March.
    32. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2001. "Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 901-932.
    33. Aboody, David & Kasznik, Ron, 2000. "CEO stock option awards and the timing of corporate voluntary disclosures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 73-100, February.
    34. Chen, Hsiu-lang & Pennacchi, George G., 2009. "Does Prior Performance Affect a Mutual Fund’s Choice of Risk? Theory and Further Empirical Evidence," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 44(4), pages 745-775, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Basak, Suleyman & Makarov, Dmitry & Shapiro, Alex & Subrahmanyam, Marti, 2020. "Security design with status concerns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    2. Zhou, Linzi & Long, Wenbin & Qu, Xin & Yao, Daifei, 2023. "Celebrity CEOs and corporate investment: A psychological contract perspective," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    3. Plaksina, Yulia & Gallagher, Liam & Dowling, Michael, 2019. "CEO social status and M&A decision making," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 282-300.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    2. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    3. Pornsit Jiraporn & Yixin Liu & Young S. Kim, 2014. "How Do Powerful CEOs Affect Analyst Coverage?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 20(3), pages 652-676, June.
    4. Citci, Sadettin Haluk & Inci, Eren, 2016. "The masquerade ball of the CEOs and the mask of excessive risk," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 383-393.
    5. Kyriacou, Kyriacos & Luintel, Kul B & Mase, Bryan, 2008. "Private Information in Executives' Option Trades: Evidence from the UK," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2008/4, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    6. Kelly Shue & Richard Townsend, 2016. "Growth through Rigidity: An Explanation for the Rise in CEO Pay," NBER Working Papers 21975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Cook, Douglas O. & Chowdhury, Jaideep & Zhang, Weiwei, 2023. "Director optimism and CEO equity compensation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 143-162.
    8. Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu & Rankin, Michaela & Haman, Janto, 2021. "The role of equity compensation in reducing inefficient investment in labor," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    9. Plaksina, Yulia & Gallagher, Liam & Dowling, Michael, 2019. "CEO social status and M&A decision making," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 282-300.
    10. Hari P. Adhikari & Marcin W. Krolikowski & James Malm & Nilesh B. Sah, 2021. "Working capital (mis)management – impact of executive age," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(1), pages 727-761, March.
    11. Carola Frydman, 2019. "Rising Through the Ranks: The Evolution of the Market for Corporate Executives, 1936–2003," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 4951-4979, November.
    12. Gao, Xin & Xu, Weidong & Li, Donghui, 2022. "Media coverage and corporate risk-taking: International evidence," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    13. Neyland, Jordan, 2020. "Love or money: The effect of CEO divorce on firm risk and compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    14. João Paulo Vieito & António Cerqueira & Elísio Brandão & Walayet A. Khan, 2009. "Executive Compensation: the Finance Perspective," Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, vol. 0(1), pages 3-32.
    15. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2009. "Superstar CEOs," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1593-1638.
    16. Renée B. Adams & Daniel Ferreira, 2009. "Strong Managers, Weak Boards?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 55(3-4), pages 482-514.
    17. Dana C. Andersen & Ramón López, 2019. "Do Tax Cuts Encourage Rent Seeking By Top Corporate Executives? Theory And Evidence," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 37(2), pages 219-235, April.
    18. Kyriacos Kyriacou & Kul B. Luintel & Bryan Mase, 2010. "Private Information in Executive Stock Option Trades: Evidence of Insider Trading in the UK," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 77(308), pages 751-774, October.
    19. Daniel Bergstresser & Mihir A. Desai & Joshua Rauh, 2004. "Earnings Manipulation and Managerial Investment Decisions: Evidence from Sponsored Pension Plans," NBER Working Papers 10543, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Fahlenbrach, Rudiger & Minton, Bernadette A. & Pan, Carrie H., 2007. "The Market for Comeback CEOs," Working Paper Series 2007-4, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:qjfxxx:v:07:y:2017:i:02:n:s2010139217500045. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/qjf/qjf.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.