IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijfss/v13y2025i2p84-d1654569.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of Asset Bubbles on Exercise of Executive Stock Options

Author

Listed:
  • Amin Mawani

    (Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

  • Saikat Sarkar

    (School of Administrative Studies, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada)

Abstract

This study examines whether Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) exercise a greater proportion of their exercisable options in response to firm-specific stock price bubbles. For a sample of U.S. firms from 1992 to 2021, the study identifies stock price bubble periods using the Generalized Sup Augmented Dickey-Fuller (GSADF) method. A bubble is a statistical measure that detects an ex-post firm-specific stock price exuberance that creates abnormally high variation in stock prices arising from changes in discount rates, R&D and market liquidity. If executives have private information and can infer firm-specific bubbles, they are likely to exercise a greater proportion of their exercisable stock options during bubbles to benefit from their firms’ stock price exuberance. Using data aggregated at the CEO-year level, we find that executives are prone to exercising a larger portion of their vested stock options during market bubbles, with the aim of monetizing on the exuberance in the firm’s stock price. They leverage their expertise and their acquired price-sensitive private information to identify these bubbles. We also find that CEOs’ option exercise activity increases as the duration of the bubble increases to capture the price momentum.

Suggested Citation

  • Amin Mawani & Saikat Sarkar, 2025. "Impact of Asset Bubbles on Exercise of Executive Stock Options," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-25, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:2:p:84-:d:1654569
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/2/84/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/2/84/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Corbet, Shaen & Lucey, Brian & Yarovaya, Larisa, 2018. "Datestamping the Bitcoin and Ethereum bubbles," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 81-88.
    2. Shiller, Robert J, 1981. "Do Stock Prices Move Too Much to be Justified by Subsequent Changes in Dividends?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 421-436, June.
    3. Zacharias Sautner & Martin Weber, 2009. "How Do Managers Behave In Stock Option Plans? Clinical Evidence From Exercise And Survey Data," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 32(2), pages 123-155, June.
    4. Jones, Jj, 1991. "Earnings Management During Import Relief Investigations," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 193-228.
    5. Xin Qu & Majella Percy & Jenny Stewart & Fang Hu, 2018. "Executive stock option vesting conditions, corporate governance and CEO attributes: evidence from Australia," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 58(2), pages 503-533, June.
    6. Rong Gong, 2023. "CEO overconfidence and the tone of press release," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 63(2), pages 2081-2108, June.
    7. Huddart, Steven, 1994. "Employee stock options," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 207-231, September.
    8. Robert J. Shiller, 2015. "Irrational Exuberance," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 3, number 10421.
    9. John Elliott & Dale Morse & Gordon Richardson, 1984. "The Association between Insider Trading and Information Announcements," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 521-536, Winter.
    10. Kenneth J. Klassen & Amin Mawani, 2000. "The Impact of Financial and Tax Reporting Incentives on Option Grants to Canadian CEOs," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 227-262, June.
    11. Izhakian, Yehuda & Yermack, David, 2017. "Risk, ambiguity, and the exercise of employee stock options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 65-85.
    12. Lambert, Ra & Larcker, Df & Verrecchia, Re, 1991. "Portfolio Considerations In Valuing Executive-Compensation," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 129-149.
    13. Ming‐Cheng Wu & Hung‐Gay Fung & Yi‐Ting Huang, 2012. "What drives the dating game of executive options exercise? Evidence from Taiwan," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 52(2), pages 605-625, June.
    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. Yuchao Fan, 2022. "Dissecting the dot-com bubble in the 1990s NASDAQ," Papers 2206.14130, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    2. Juwon Jang & Eunju Lee, 2024. "CEO confidence matters: the real effects of short sale constraints revisited," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 603-636, February.
    3. Assaf, Ata & Demir, Ender & Ersan, Oguz, 2024. "Detecting and date-stamping bubbles in fan tokens," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 98-113.
    4. Kenneth J. Klassen & Amin Mawani, 2000. "The Impact of Financial and Tax Reporting Incentives on Option Grants to Canadian CEOs," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(2), pages 227-262, June.
    5. Carpenter, Jennifer N., 1998. "The exercise and valuation of executive stock options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 127-158, May.
    6. Neto, David, 2021. "Are Google searches making the Bitcoin market run amok? A tail event analysis," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    7. Hodder, James E. & Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2011. "Managerial responses to incentives: Control of firm risk, derivative pricing implications, and outside wealth management," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 1507-1518, June.
    8. Lim, Terence & Lo, Andrew W. & Merton, Robert C. & Scholes, Myron S., 2006. "The Derivatives Sourcebook," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 1(5–6), pages 365-572, April.
    9. Anastasia A. Zakolyukina, 2018. "How Common Are Intentional GAAP Violations? Estimates from a Dynamic Model," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 5-44, March.
    10. Grasselli, Matheus & Henderson, Vicky, 2009. "Risk aversion and block exercise of executive stock options," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 109-127, January.
    11. Giovanni Carnazza, 2024. "The Impact of the Social Mood on the Italian Sovereign Debt Market: A Twitter Perspective," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 10(1), pages 125-154, March.
    12. Bruno Biais & Christophe Bisière & Matthieu Bouvard & Catherine Casamatta & Albert J. Menkveld, 2023. "Equilibrium Bitcoin Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 78(2), pages 967-1014, April.
    13. Bergman, Nittai K. & Jenter, Dirk, 2007. "Employee sentiment and stock option compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 667-712, June.
    14. Kothari, S. P., 2001. "Capital markets research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 105-231, September.
    15. Carmona, Julio & León, Angel & Vaello-Sebastià, Antoni, 2011. "Pricing executive stock options under employment shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 97-114, January.
    16. Izhakian, Yehuda, 2020. "A theoretical foundation of ambiguity measurement," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    17. Imad A. Moosa, 2020. "The bitcoin: a sparkling bubble or price discovery?," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 47(1), pages 93-113, March.
    18. Kothari, S.P. & Ramanna, Karthik & Skinner, Douglas J., 2010. "Implications for GAAP from an analysis of positive research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 246-286, December.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/3tjqcugffh9i1qqufo79qh86il is not listed on IDEAS
    20. repec:dau:papers:123456789/9550 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Brian J. Hall & Thomas A. Knox, 2002. "Managing Option Fragility," NBER Working Papers 9059, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Julan Du & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Does Insider Trading Raise Market Volatility?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(498), pages 916-942, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:2:p:84-:d:1654569. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.