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CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment
Author(s) -
MALMENDIER ULRIKE,
TATE GEOFFREY
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
the journal of finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 18.151
H-Index - 299
eISSN - 1540-6261
pISSN - 0022-1082
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2005.00813.x
Subject(s) - overconfidence effect , investment (military) , cash flow , external financing , equity (law) , business , portfolio , investment decisions , panel data , monetary economics , behavioral economics , finance , economics , econometrics , psychology , social psychology , debt , politics , political science , law
ABSTRACT We argue that managerial overconfidence can account for corporate investment distortions. Overconfident managers overestimate the returns to their investment projects and view external funds as unduly costly. Thus, they overinvest when they have abundant internal funds, but curtail investment when they require external financing. We test the overconfidence hypothesis, using panel data on personal portfolio and corporate investment decisions of Forbes 500 CEOs. We classify CEOs as overconfident if they persistently fail to reduce their personal exposure to company‐specific risk. We find that investment of overconfident CEOs is significantly more responsive to cash flow, particularly in equity‐dependent firms.