Are CEO characteristics associated with income smoothing?

ABSTRACT

This study examines whether CEO characteristics are potentially linked to firms’ financial reporting behaviour, i.e. income smoothing behaviour. Using a unique hand-collected data set on CEO characteristics between 2008 and 2017 from U.K. firms, we find that firms with longer CEO tenure, run by CEOs with accounting or finance educational backgrounds, and those with female CEOs tend to engage in more income smoothing. Our results are robust to alternative measures of income smoothing and different estimation specifications. Our empirical evidence suggests that certain types of CEO characteristics play an important role in determining a firm’s income-smoothing activities. Our study sheds light on how CEO characteristics extend to other aspects of corporate behaviour, in this case, firms’ income smoothing behaviours.

KEYWORDS:

• CEO characteristics
• income smoothing
• financial reporting
• upper echelons theory

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• G30
• G34
• M41

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).