The Influence of Risk Diversification on the Early Exercise of Employee Stock Options by Executive Officers

This paper examines the decision to exercise employee stock options (ESOs). Our results indicate a positive relation between the extent of quot;earlyquot; exercise and the unhedged risk of the option. Specifically we document a positive relation between the variance of ESO returns and the extent of quot;earlyquot; exercise and show that the strength of the relation is reduced by the extent the firm hedges the returns on the ESO. We thus provide empirical evidence of a link between an ESO's expected term and its investment risk to the executive and document that some firms provide a hedge against option risk