The Effect of CEO Overconfidence on Corporate Disclosures Amid a Pervasive Shock: Evidence From the COVID‐19 Pandemic

Surendranath Jory, Thanh Ngo and Jurica Susnjara

Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 2025, vol. 52, issue 3, 1431-1462

Abstract: We investigate how CEO overconfidence affect firms’ voluntary reporting of COVID‐19 exposure using text‐based measures of firm‐level COVID‐19 pandemic exposure reports. Our analysis of 3038 firm‐quarter earnings conference calls in 2020 reveals that overconfident CEOs express a less pessimistic tone, compared to non‐overconfident CEOs when discussing their firms’ exposure to the pandemic, and these results hold under various robustness checks. Additionally, a more pronounced negative pandemic exposure sentiment predicts weaker subsequent operating performance among non‐overconfident and overconfident CEOs alike. While increased negative sentiment leads to worse stock performance among firms with non‐overconfident CEOs, this predictive power is significantly weakened for overconfident CEOs. Our findings provide insights into how CEO overconfidence can affect firms’ disclosure behavior during a crisis and contribute to the literature on CEO overconfidence and pandemic‐related disclosures.

Date: 2025
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