Managerial Attitudes and Corporate Actions

We administer psychometric tests to senior executives to obtain evidence on their underlying psychological traits and attitudes. We find U.S. CEOs differ significantly from non-U.S. CEOs in terms of their underlying attitudes. In addition, we find that CEOs are significantly more optimistic and risk-tolerant than the lay population. We provide evidence that CEO's behavioral traits such as optimism and managerial risk-aversion are related to corporate financial policies. Further, we provide new empirical evidence that CEO traits such as risk aversion and time preference are related to their compensation