We find significant positive abnormal returns surrounding a surprising and quick enactment of a law that restricts executive pay to a binding upper limit in a few industries. We find that the effect is concentrated only for firms in which the restriction is binding. We also find that the...

Using a large sample of firms from 38 countries over the 2001-2012 period, we find evidence that following say on pay (SoP) laws, CEO pay growth rates decline and the sensitivity of CEO pay to firm performance improves. These changes are mostly concentrated on firms with high excess pay and...

CEO emotions are difficult to measure and hence empirically understudied. However, using artificial emotional intelligence, positive and negative affects can be identified from facial muscle contraction-relaxation patterns obtained from public CEO photos during initial coin offerings (ICOs),...

Firms with narcissistic CEOs are more likely to experience the turnover of non-CEO executives; this effect is amplified for executives with pay closer to the CEO's pay. Stock price reactions to narcissism-induced departures are more negative the longer the non-CEO executive's tenure. If...

Using a sample of about 90,000 observations from 38 countries over the 2001-2012 period, we provide three novel findings regarding say on pay (SoP) laws. First, we find robust evidence that SoP laws reduce CEO pay growth rates at firms. Second, such laws decrease the portion of total top...

This study examines the effect of senior executives’ academic career experience on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and further investigates how such CSR engagement dominated by academic senior executives affects firm value. Using data from China, this study reveals that firms run by...

This study provides evidence suggesting that CEOs’ physical fitness has a positive impact on firm value, consistent with the beneficial effects of fitness on, e.g., cognitive functions, stress coping and job performance. For each of the years 2001 to 2011, we define S&P 1500 CEOs as fit if...

We provide evidence for a positive impact of CEO fitness on firm value (Tobin's Q). For each of the years 2001 to 2011, we define S&P 1500 CEOs as fit if they finish a marathon. Fit CEOs are associated with higher firm profitability and M&A announcement returns. Effects on firm value are...