The face of risk: CEO facial masculinity and firm risk

Shinichi Kamiya, Y. Han (Andy) Kim and Soohyun Park

European Financial Management, 2019, vol. 25, issue 2, 239-270

Abstract: We examine whether a male CEO's facial masculinity, measured by facial width‐to‐height ratio (fWHR), predicts the riskiness of his firm. Using the face pictures of 1,162 CEOs in the Execucomp database, we find supporting evidence. Firms with more masculine‐faced CEOs have higher stock return volatility and higher financial leverage and are more acquisitive. Their frequency of acquisitions, the dollar amount spent on acquisitions, and the takeover premium are all higher. We find that more masculine‐faced CEOs’ compensation is more sensitive to the risk of the firm. The result is robust when we use AI (artificial intelligence)‐measured fWHR of the CEOs.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/eufm.12175

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:eufman:v:25:y:2019:i:2:p:239-270

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1354-7798

Access Statistics for this article

European Financial Management is currently edited by John Doukas

More articles in European Financial Management from European Financial Management Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().