This article is based on the keynote address from the Eastern Finance Association meeting in South Beach in April 2010. In this keynote address, I discuss how to engage and motivate students by using the results from surveys of corporate finance professionals. Specific examples are given to...

We survey 401 financial executives, and conduct in-depth interviews with an additional 20, to determine the key factors that drive decisions related to performance measurement and voluntary disclosure. The majority of firms view earnings, especially EPS, as the key metric for an external...

Using a unique 10-year panel that includes more than 13,300 expected stock market return probability distributions, we find that executives are severely miscalibrated, producing distributions that are too narrow: realized market returns are within the executives' 80% confidence intervals only...

We present a selection of seminar slides based on our 2013 Quarterly Journal of Economics paper, "https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1640552" Managerial Miscalibration. Using a large panel of CFO forecasts of S&P 500 returns, we find that executives are severely miscalibrated,...

This document contains supplemental materials for my AFA address entitled: “Presidential Address: Corporate Finance and Reality” (2022). The address paper provides updated data from and analysis of CFO surveys about corporate investment, capital structure, payout, planning, and other...

This paper conducts surveys that document CFO perspectives on corporate planning, corporate investment, capital structure, payout, and the goal of the firm. Current policy choices are compared to CFO survey data from two decades prior, which allows me to identify decision-making themes that are...

Miscalibration is a standard measure of overconfidence in both psychology and economics. Although it is often used in lab experiments, there is scarcity of evidence about its effects in practice. We test whether top corporate executives are miscalibrated, and whether their miscalibration impacts...

Using a unique 10-year panel that includes more than 13,300 expected stock market return probability distributions, we find that executives are severely miscalibrated, producing distributions that are too narrow: realized market returns are within the executives' 80% confidence intervals only...

In February and March of 1999, we surveyed 392 CFOs about the cost of capital, capital budgeting, and capital structure. The survey consisted of 14 main questions, most with subparts - over 100 questions in total. Although the survey was anonymous, we also collected information on 12...

We survey 392 CFOs about the cost of capital, capital budgeting, and capital structure. Large firms rely heavily on net present value techniques and the capital asset pricing model, while small firms are relatively likely to use the payback criterion. Older executives without an MBA are more...