Focusing on a key CEO characteristic, materialism, we investigate how the prevalence of materialistic CEOs in the banking sector has evolved over time, and how risk management policies, the behavior of non-CEO executives and bank tail risk vary with CEO materialism. We document that the...

We examine how and why insider trading varies across senior executives and their firms. As predicted, the profitability of both purchases and sales are higher for “recordholder” executives (those who have a record of legal infractions), than for other “non-recordholder” executives at the...

We examine how executives' behavior outside the workplace, as measured by their ownership of luxury goods (low "frugality") and prior legal infractions, is related to financial reporting risk. We predict and find that CEOs and CFOs with a legal record are more likely to perpetrate fraud. In...