Affiliation:
1. Knauss School of Business University of San Diego San Diego California USA
2. The George L. Argyros College of Business & Economics Chapman University Orange California USA
3. Foster School of Business University of Washington Seattle Washington USA
4. Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business University of Waterloo Ontario Canada
Abstract
AbstractWe examine whether CEO extraversion, an important personality trait associated with leadership, is associated with firms' expected cost of equity capital. We measure CEO extraversion using CEOs' speech patterns during the unscripted portion of conference calls. After controlling for multiple CEO and firm‐specific variables, we find a strong positive incremental association between CEO extraversion and firms' expected cost of capital. Moreover, cost of equity increases when a more extraverted CEO replaces a less extraverted CEO. In addition, we find that firms with relatively extraverted CEOs take more risk and exhibit lower credit ratings, which is associated with higher cost of equity capital. These results are statistically and economically meaningful and do not appear to be driven by reverse causality, endogenous matching, look‐ahead bias, or bias in analysts' earnings forecast.