Nargess Golshan, Assistant Professor, is scheduled to present her registered report proposal co-authored with Mark (Sung-Yuan) Cheng (Ph.D. student) "CEO Depression and Corporate Investments: Evidence from Acoustic Features (Registered Report Proposal)" at Journal of Accounting Research Second Registered Reports Conference in October 2021.
Abstract: We examine how Chief Executive Officer (CEO) depression affects corporate investment decisions. We develop a novel measure to capture CEO depression using a machine learning algorithm from acoustic features of the CEO's voice during earning conference calls. We then examine the mechanisms through which depression affects investment decisions, as prior psychology literature points to depression-related reward and punishment sensitivity and feedback processing as two channels through which depression affects decision-making. We also investigate whether CEO resilience and overconfidence moderate the effect of depression on investment decisions. Finally, we consider the effect of CEO depression on firm performance.
