IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hit/hitcei/2006-21.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do CEOs matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Bennedsen, Morten
  • Perez-Gonzalez, Francisco
  • Wolfenzon, Daniel

Abstract

Estimating the value of top managerial talent is a central topic of research that has attracted widespread attention from academics and practitioners. Yet, studying the impact of managers on firm performance is difficult because of endogeneity and omitted variables concerns. In this paper, we test for the impact of managers on firm performance in two ways. First, we examine whether top executive deaths have an impact on firm performance, focusing on the manager and firm characteristics that are associated to large manager-death effects. Second, we test for the interaction between the personal and professional activities of managers by examining the effect of deaths of immediate family members (spouses, parents, children, etc) on firm performance. Our main findings are three. First, CEO deaths are strongly correlated with declines in firms operating profitability, asset growth and sales growth. Second, the death of board members does not seem to affect firm prospects, indicating that not all senior managers are equally important for firms' outcomes. Third, CEOs' immediate family deaths are significantly negatively correlated to firm performance. This last result suggests a strong link between the personal and business roles that top management plays, a connection that is present even in large firms. Overall, our findings demonstrate CEOs are extremely important for firms' prospects.

Suggested Citation

  • Bennedsen, Morten & Perez-Gonzalez, Francisco & Wolfenzon, Daniel, 2007. "Do CEOs matter?," CEI Working Paper Series 2006-21, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    • Handle: RePEc:hit:hitcei:2006-21
    Note: First draft: October 15, 2006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/hermes/ir/re/13479/wp2006-21a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Prix du livre d'économie du Sénat : Laurent Mauduit, petits conseils
      by Alexandre Delaigue in Econoclaste on 2007-11-11 20:20:55
    2. What do bosses do?
      by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2007-08-30 15:25:57

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Goodall, Amanda H., 2009. "Highly cited leaders and the performance of research universities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 1079-1092, September.
    2. von Lilienfeld-Toal, Ulf & Ruenzi, Stefan, 2006. "Why managers hold shares of their firm: An empirical analysis," CFR Working Papers 06-11, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    3. Edward P. Lazear & Kathryn L. Shaw & Christopher T. Stanton, 2015. "The Value of Bosses," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(4), pages 823-861.
    4. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2007. "A Calibratable Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 13372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Anders Frederiksen & Lisa B. Kahn & Fabian Lange, 2020. "Supervisors and Performance Management Systems," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2123-2187.
    6. Nguyen, Bang Dang & Nielsen, Kasper Meisner, 2010. "The value of independent directors: Evidence from sudden deaths," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(3), pages 550-567, December.
    7. Naz, Iram & Shah, Syed Muhammad Amir & Kutan, Ali M., 2017. "Do managers of sharia-compliant firms have distinctive financial styles?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 174-187.
    8. Matthew Smith & Danny Yagan & Owen Zidar & Eric Zwick, 2019. "Capitalists in the Twenty-First Century," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(4), pages 1675-1745.
    9. Bernile, Gennaro & Jarrell, Gregg A., 2009. "The impact of the options backdating scandal on shareholders," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 2-26, March.
    10. Owan, Hideo & Takahashi, Shingo & Tsuru, Tsuyoshi & Uehara, Katsuhito, 2014. "Finding Good Managers: An Econometric Case Study of a Large Japanese Auto Dealership," Discussion Paper Series 609, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    11. Lazear, Edward P. & Shaw, Kathryn L., 2014. "The value of bosses," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60611, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. João Amador & Sharmin Sazedj & José Tavares, 2018. "CEO Performance in Severe Crises: The Role of Newcomers," Working Papers w201821, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    13. Lustig, Hanno & Syverson, Chad & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2011. "Technological change and the growing inequality in managerial compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 601-627, March.
    14. Gürerk, Özgür & Irlenbusch, Bernd & Rockenbach, Bettina, 2009. "Motivating teammates: The leader's choice between positive and negative incentives," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 591-607, August.
    15. Steven N. Kaplan & Mark M. Klebanov & Morten Sorensen, 2008. "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?," NBER Working Papers 14195, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Cesare Fracassi, 2017. "Corporate Finance Policies and Social Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(8), pages 2420-2438, August.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hit:hitcei:2006-21. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Reiko Suzuki (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cehitjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.