Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Garcia-Feijoo, Luis

Abstract

Increasing evidence suggests the personal traits of chief executive officers (CEOs) can influence corporate policies. We examine how one dimension, past professional experiences, can affect corporate payout policy. Exploiting exogenous CEO turnovers and future employment, we hypothesize that CEOs experiencing a distress event in their past career alter the corporate payout policy at their subsequent firm of employment. We discover that CEOs having experienced prior professional career distress are less likely to pay dividends and use repurchases and pay out lower levels for each type of payout. Additionally, when CEOs with distress do have a payout policy greater than zero dollars, there exists a preference toward the use of repurchases in the payout policy, adding to the literature of substitution and differences between the two forms of payout. We find that dividend smoothing is reduced by CEOs that have past professional distress.

Extent

157 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00013305

Format

pdf

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