 CEOs' narcissism and opportunistic insider tradingCheng Jiang, Kose John, J.H. John Kim and Jingyu Zhang Journal of Corporate Finance, 2025, vol. 91, issue C Abstract: Narcissism is a multifaceted personality trait that profoundly influences individuals' cognition, emotions, and actions. This study investigates the relationship between narcissistic CEOs and their engagement in opportunistic insider trading. Utilizing a quantitative measure of CEOs' narcissism derived from textual analysis, we find that CEOs with a higher level of narcissism engage in opportunistic insider trading more intensely. To mitigate endogeneity concerns, we employ various rigorous approaches, including matching, instrumental variable, Heckman's two-step sample selection model, and falsification tests. Through cross-sectional analysis, we find that the impact of CEOs' narcissism on opportunistic insider trading is more pronounced among CEOs with limited legal knowledge, facing weaker external and internal monitoring pressure, working at larger firms, and being male. In addition, we demonstrate that the insider trades of narcissistic CEOs are less profitable and less informative than those of non-narcissistic CEOs, as evidenced by subsequent stock performance. Keywords: CEO; Narcissism; Insider trading (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:91:y:2025:i:c:s0929119924001573 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102695 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Corporate Finance is currently edited by A. Poulsen and J. Netter More articles in Journal of Corporate Finance from Elsevier |
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