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CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation

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Author Info
Dirk Jenter
Fadi Kanaan

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Abstract

This paper examines whether CEOs are fired after bad firm performance caused by factors beyond their control. Standard economic theory predicts that corporate boards filter out exogenous industry and market shocks to firm performance when deciding on CEO retention. Using a new hand-collected sample of 1,590 CEO turnovers from 1993 to 2001, we document that CEOs are significantly more likely to be dismissed from their jobs after bad industry and bad market performance. A decline in the industry component of firm performance from its 75th to its 25th percentile increases the probability of a forced CEO turnover by approximately 50 percent. This finding is robust to controls for firm-specific performance. The result is at odds with the prior empirical literature which showed that corporate boards filter exogenous shocks from CEO dismissal decisions in samples from the 1970s and 1980s. Our findings suggest that the standard CEO turnover model is too simple to capture the empirical relation between performance and forced CEO turnovers, and we evaluate several extensions to the standard model.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 12068.

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Date of creation: Mar 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12068

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
D20 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - General
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Renée Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2008. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," NBER Working Papers 14486, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Fahlenbrach, Rudiger & Low, Angie & Stulz, Rene, 2008. "Why Do Firms Appoint CEOs as Outside Directors?," Working Paper Series 2008-10, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. 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. [Downloadable!]
  4. Gehrig, Thomas P. & Lütje, Torben & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2008. "Bonus Payments and Fund Managers' Behavior: Trans-Atlantic Evidence," Diskussionspapiere der Wirtschaftswissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Hannover dp-411, Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Kang, Qiang & Mitnik, Oscar A., 2008. "Not So Lucky Any More: CEO Compensation in Financially Distressed Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 3857, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Arantxa Jarque, 2008. "CEO compensation : trends, market changes, and regulation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Sum, pages 265-300. [Downloadable!]
  7. Steven N. Kaplan & Bernadette Minton, 2006. "How has CEO Turnover Changed? Increasingly Performance Sensitive Boards and Increasingly Uneasy CEOs," NBER Working Papers 12465, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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