In a labor market hierarchy, promotions are affected by the noisiness of information about the candidates. I study the hypothesis that males are more risk taking than females, and its implications for rates of promotion and abilities of survivors. I define promotion hierarchies with and without...

Large-scale increases in discrimination can lead to dismissals of highly qualified managers. We investigate how expulsions of senior Jewish managers, due to rising discrimination in Nazi Germany, affected large corporations. Firms that lost Jewish managers experienced persistent reductions in...

Large-scale increases in discrimination can lead to dismissals of highly qualified managers. We investigate how expulsions of senior Jewish managers, due to rising discrimination in Nazi Germany, affected large corporations. Firms that lost Jewish managers experienced persistent reductions in...

Spitzensportlern werden in der Literatur ähnliche Persönlichkeitseigenschaften wie Führungskräften in der Wirtschaft zugeschrieben. Unter Nutzung des Fünf- Faktoren-Modells der Persönlichkeit lässt sich in einer geringen Anzahl an Studien im deutschsprachigen Raum für beide Gruppen ein...

We document a stylized fact that more than 10% of S&P 1500 companies have hired a CEO who starts the job near or above the retirement age of 65 years old (Retiring CEOs). This phenomenon exists among all industries and persists over time. This finding is puzzling because conventional wisdom...

Empirical evidence on the relations between board independence and board decisions and firm performance is generally confounded by serious endogeneity issues. We circumvent these endogeneity problems by demonstrating the strong impact of the local director labor market on board composition....

Situational judgment tests (SJTs) constitute an efficient and well‐established method for predicting professional success. However, more information is needed regarding their relationship to applicants' behavior as observed in an assessment center (AC) at the construct level. In the present...

We investigate whether competitive selection processes generate gender inequality in the context of a prestigious graduate fellowship program. All applications are scored remotely by expert reviewers and the highest ranked are invited to an in-person interview. The data show a very large gender...

Prior economic research is very critical about family CEOs and family management. Nepotism, altruism, lower managerial abilities, and a small pool of qualified family candidates are cited as reasons that speak against family management. Still, the empirical reality is different. A surprisingly...

"Over the years, there has been more and more research to test the validity of personnel assessment methods, an area which is far from easy. This book compares traditional practices against new techniques, including social media analytics, wearables, mobile phone logs, and gamification....

Teil 1: Grundlagen und Rahmenbedingungen für die Nachfolgeplanung in Non-Profit-Organisationen -- Strategische Nachfolgeplanung in Non-Profit-Organisationen: ein Überblick -- Die rechtliche Organisationsstruktur gemeinnütziger Träger im Wandel -- Passt oder passt es nicht? Werte,...

"Every year, companies spend billions of dollars in board time and headhunter fees on CEO search. In fact, by many accounts, the selection of the next CEO is the single most important task of the board of directors. Yet, despite the huge amount of time, money, and attention given to the task,...

Large-scale increases in discrimination can lead to dismissals of highly qualified managers. We investigate how expulsions of senior Jewish managers, due to rising discrimination in Nazi Germany, affected large corporations. Firms that lost Jewish managers experienced persistent reductions in...

Measuring the value of labor-market hires for stock prices, be it underwriters when firms go public (IPOs) or chief executive officers (CEOs), is difficult due to selection. Opaque firms with higher costs of capital benefit more from prestigious underwriters, while productive firms benefit more...

Can an algorithm assist firms in their hiring decisions of corporate directors? This paper proposes a method of selecting boards of directors that relies on machine learning. We develop algorithms with the goal of selecting directors that would be preferred by the shareholders of a particular...

Measuring the value of labor-market hires for stock prices, be it underwriters when firms go public (IPOs) or chief executive officers (CEOs), is difficult due to selection. Opaque firms with higher costs of capital benefit more from prestigious underwriters, while productive firms benefit more...

Can algorithms assist firms in their decisions on nominating corporate directors? We construct algorithms to make out-of-sample predictions of director performance. Tests of the quality of these predictions show that directors predicted to do poorly indeed do poorly compared to a realistic pool...

Measuring the value of labor-market hires for stock prices, be it underwriters when firms go public (IPOs) or chief executive officers (CEOs), is difficult due to selection. Opaque firms with higher costs of capital benefit more from prestigious underwriters, while productive firms benefit more...

We present a model where firms compete for scarce managerial talent ("alpha") and managers are risk-averse. When managers cannot move across firms after being hired, employers learn about their talent, allocate them efficiently to projects and provide insurance to low-quality managers. When...