Measures of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) excess compensation are negatively related to future firm returns and operating performance. The effect is stronger for more overconfident CEOs at firms with weaker corporate governance. Overconfident CEOs receiving high excess pay undertake activities...

We document a significantly negative correlation between the absolute sensitivity of the CEO's option portfolio value to dividend yield (denoted by the Greek letter Psi) and corporate dividend payouts. After the implementation of the FAS 123R, firms that reduce the CEOs' holdings of highly...

This paper presents strong evidence that existing studies overestimate the impact of CEOs on the performance of the firms they lead. Ours is a comprehensive study of more than 3,692 CEOs in 2,103 firms in 22 countries, and for the period 1991-2019. Our objective is to assess the direct impact of...