IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v109y2013i1p103-121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Managerial attitudes and corporate actions

Author

Listed:
  • Graham, John R.
  • Harvey, Campbell R.
  • Puri, Manju

Abstract

We administer psychometric tests to senior executives to obtain evidence on their underlying psychological traits and attitudes. We find US CEOs differ significantly from non-US CEOs in terms of their underlying attitudes. In addition, we find that CEOs are significantly more optimistic and risk-tolerant than the lay population. We provide evidence that CEOs' behavioral traits such as optimism and managerial risk-aversion are related to corporate financial policies. Further, we provide new empirical evidence that CEO traits such as risk-aversion and time preference are related to their compensation.

Suggested Citation

  • Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Puri, Manju, 2013. "Managerial attitudes and corporate actions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 103-121.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:109:y:2013:i:1:p:103-121
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.01.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X13000275
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2013.01.010?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. Robert B. Barsky & Miles S. Kimball & F. Thomas Juster & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1995. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Survey," NBER Working Papers 5213, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Malmendier, Ulrike & Tate, Geoffrey, 2008. "Who makes acquisitions? CEO overconfidence and the market's reaction," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 20-43, July.
    3. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2661-2700, December.
    4. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Rajgopal, Shiva, 2005. "The economic implications of corporate financial reporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1-3), pages 3-73, December.
    5. J B Heaton, 2002. "Managerial Optimism and Corporate Finance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 31(2), Summer.
    6. List John A., 2007. "Field Experiments: A Bridge between Lab and Naturally Occurring Data," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-47, April.
    7. Laibson, David I. & Agarwal, Sumit & Driscoll, John C. & Gabaix, Xavier, 2009. "The Age of Reason: Financial Decisions over the Life-Cycle with Implications for Regulation," Scholarly Articles 4554335, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    8. Brav, Alon & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Michaely, Roni, 2005. "Payout policy in the 21st century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 483-527, September.
    9. Judith Chevalier & Glenn Ellison, 1999. "Are Some Mutual Fund Managers Better Than Others? Cross‐Sectional Patterns in Behavior and Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(3), pages 875-899, June.
    10. Sumit Agarwal & John C. Driscoll & Xavier Gabaix & David Laibson, 2009. "The Age of Reason: Financial Decisions over the Life Cycle and Implications for Regulation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(2 (Fall)), pages 51-117.
    11. Deaton, Angus & Arora, Raksha, 2009. "Life at the top: The benefits of height," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 133-136, July.
    12. Trahan, Emery A. & Gitman, Lawrence J., 1995. "Bridging the theory-practice gap in corporate finance: A survey of chief financial officers," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 73-87.
    13. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    14. Ron Kaniel & Cade Massey & David T. Robinson, 2010. "The Importance of Being an Optimist: Evidence from Labor Markets," NBER Working Papers 16328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Steven N. Kaplan & Mark M. Klebanov & Morten Sorensen, 2012. "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 973-1007, June.
    16. Gregor Andrade & Mark Mitchell & Erik Stafford, 2001. "New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 103-120, Spring.
    17. Brad M. Barber & Terrance Odean, 2001. "Boys will be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 116(1), pages 261-292.
    18. Nicola Persico & Andrew Postlewaite & Dan Silverman, 2004. "The Effect of Adolescent Experience on Labor Market Outcomes: The Case of Height," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 1019-1053, October.
    19. Hackbarth, Dirk, 2008. "Managerial Traits and Capital Structure Decisions," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 843-881, December.
    20. Roll, Richard, 1986. "The Hubris Hypothesis of Corporate Takeovers," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(2), pages 197-216, April.
    21. Anne Case & Christina Paxson, 2008. "Stature and Status: Height, Ability, and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(3), pages 499-532, June.
    22. Franklin Allen, 2005. "Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 164-177, Summer.
    23. Stephen A. Ross, 2004. "Compensation, Incentives, and the Duality of Risk Aversion and Riskiness," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(1), pages 207-225, February.
    24. Robert B. Barsky & F. Thomas Juster & Miles S. Kimball & Matthew D. Shapiro, 1997. "Preference Parameters and Behavioral Heterogeneity: An Experimental Approach in the Health and Retirement Study," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(2), pages 537-579.
    25. Augustin Landier & David Thesmar, 2009. "Financial Contracting with Optimistic Entrepreneurs," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 117-150, January.
    26. Canice Prendergast, 2002. "The Tenuous Trade-off between Risk and Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 1071-1102, October.
    27. Murphy, Kevin J., 1999. "Executive compensation," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 38, pages 2485-2563, Elsevier.
    28. Puri, Manju & Robinson, David T., 2007. "Optimism and economic choice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 71-99, October.
    29. Steven N. Kaplan & Per Strömberg, 2004. "Characteristics, Contracts, and Actions: Evidence from Venture Capitalist Analyses," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(5), pages 2177-2210, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Otto, Clemens A., 2014. "CEO optimism and incentive compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 366-404.
    2. Malcolm Baker & Richard S. Ruback & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Puri, Manju, 2015. "Capital allocation and delegation of decision-making authority within firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 449-470.
    4. Ulrike Malmendier & Vincenzo Pezone & Hui Zheng, 2023. "Managerial Duties and Managerial Biases," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(6), pages 3174-3201, June.
    5. Berger, Allen N. & Kick, Thomas & Schaeck, Klaus, 2014. "Executive board composition and bank risk taking," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 48-65.
    6. Weifeng Xu & Qingsong Ruan & Chang Liu, 2019. "Can the Famous University Experience of Top Managers Improve Corporate Performance? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-20, December.
    7. Ulrike Malmendier, 2018. "Behavioral Corporate Finance," NBER Working Papers 25162, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate & Jonathan Yan, 2010. "Overconfidence and Early-life Experiences: The Impact of Managerial Traits on Corporate Financial Policies," NBER Working Papers 15659, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ridha Esghaier, 2017. "Capital Structure Choices and Behavioral Biases: An Application to a Panel of US Industrial Companies," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 7(4), pages 608-622.
    10. Huang, Ronghong & Tan, Kelvin Jui Keng & Faff, Robert W., 2016. "CEO overconfidence and corporate debt maturity," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 93-110.
    11. Kamal Anouar, 2013. "L'Exces De Confiance Des Dirigeants Et La Decision De Distribution De Dividendes : Une Analyse Lexicale," Working Papers halshs-00797635, HAL.
    12. Sanjukta Brahma & Agyenim Boateng & Sardar Ahmad, 2023. "Board overconfidence and M&A performance: evidence from the UK," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 1363-1391, May.
    13. Entrop, Oliver & Merkel, Matthias F., 2018. "Managers' research education, the use of FX derivatives and corporate speculation," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Betriebswirtschaftliche Reihe B-32-18, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    14. Schrand, Catherine M. & Zechman, Sarah L.C., 2012. "Executive overconfidence and the slippery slope to financial misreporting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 311-329.
    15. Hvide, Hans K. & Panos, Georgios A., 2014. "Risk tolerance and entrepreneurship," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 200-223.
    16. Hardeep Singh Mundi, 2023. "Impact of CEO Overconfidence on Capital Structure Decisions: Evidence from S&P BSE 200," Vision, , vol. 27(1), pages 63-78, February.
    17. Deshmukh, Sanjay & Goel, Anand M. & Howe, Keith M., 2013. "CEO overconfidence and dividend policy," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 440-463.
    18. Tobias Heizer & Laura R. Rettig, 2020. "Top management team optimism and its influence on firms' financing and investment decisions," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(4), pages 601-622, October.
    19. Yim, Soojin, 2013. "The acquisitiveness of youth: CEO age and acquisition behavior," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 250-273.
    20. Adams, Renée & Keloharju, Matti & Knüpfer, Samuli, 2018. "Are CEOs born leaders? Lessons from traits of a million individuals," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(2), pages 392-408.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Managers; Attitudes; Personality traits; Risk-aversion; Capital structure; Debt; Acquisitions; Corporate policies; Behavioral corporate finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:jfinec:v:109:y:2013:i:1:p:103-121. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    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.