“I Do”: Does Marital Status Affect How Much CEOs “Do”?

Gina Nicolosi and Adam S. Yore

The Financial Review, 2015, vol. 50, issue 1, 57-88

Abstract: This paper explores whether a CEO's marital status reveals unobservable risk preferences which influence their firm's investment and compensation policies. Using biographical data for CEOs of large domestic companies, we find that corporate deal-making activity (e.g., mergers, joint ventures, major capital expenditures, etc.) and overall firm riskiness both increase significantly with personal life restructuring (e.g., marriages and divorces). This relation is supported by an instrumental variables analysis and also an investigation surrounding CEO turnover. Finally, the link between a CEO's marital status and preference for option-based compensation further suggests that personal restructuring may be an indicator of executive risk appetites.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/fire.12060 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:finrev:v:50:y:2015:i:1:p:57-88

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0732-8516

Access Statistics for this article

The Financial Review is currently edited by Cynthia J. Campbell and Arnold R. Cowan

More articles in The Financial Review from Eastern Finance Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().