Between Scylla and Charybdis: CEO Political Ideology, Dividends and Downsizing During the Pandemic

Ali Bayat, Marc Goergen, Panagiotis Koutroumpis, Xingjie Wei

Research output: Working paperDiscussion paper

Abstract

We study whether CEO political ideology affected how S&P 500 firms reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic, an exogenous shock to demand and supply. We hypothesize that conservative CEOs are more likely to adopt shareholder-friendly than employee-friendly reactions to the pandemic.Hence, they should be more likely to downsize their workforce while maintaining dividends. In contrast, other CEOs should be less likely to meet dividend expectations and less likely to downsize. We find confirmation of this hypothesis. We also find that CEOs used the dividend forecasts for 2020 as their benchmark rather than the 2019 dividends to make their dividend decision.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherEuropean Corporate Governance Institute
VolumeNo. 802/2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Dec 2021

Publication series

NameEuropean Corporate Governance Institute – Finance Working Paper
No.802/2021

Keywords

  • CEO Political Ideology
  • Dividend Policy
  • Downsizing
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Covid-19 Pandemic

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Between Scylla and Charybdis: CEO Political Ideology, Dividends and Downsizing During the Pandemic'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this