CEO and CFO risk-taking incentives and earnings guidance

ABSTRACT

Extending recent studies on chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs), we investigate the impact of CEO and CFO risk-taking incentives on earnings guidance. We find that firms with high CEO risk-taking incentives are more likely to issue earnings guidance and issue more guidance. We also find that firms with high CFO risk-taking incentives are associated with less precise guidance, narrower forecast range, and earlier forecasts.

KEYWORDS:

• CEO
• CFO
• risk-taking incentives
• corporate disclosure
• earnings guidance

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• G32
• M52
• M41

Acknowledgments

For helpful comments, we thank the discussant and participants of the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Finance Association, and participants of research workshop at University of Rhode Island. All errors are ours.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.