Malmendier & Tate CEO Overconfidence
Variables necessary to replicate Malmendier & Tate Over confidence measures:
Ideal Variables:
- Value of Options
- Option grant date
- Year in which option was exercised
- Mean stock price in year of exercise
- Median stock price in year of exercise
- High stock price in year of exercise
- Malmendier & Tate use the 5th year after the option grant date (maybe we use 5th year after person becomes CEO because we haven't found the grant date variable) because across various packages it is the first year in which at least part of the option packages in the sample are exercisable.
- 67% In the money appears to mean that the market price has appreciated 67% from the strike price as opposed to 67% of a CEO's options being in the money at a given time.
We construct Measure 1 (for both 67% and 100% in the money during the fifth year) as
follows. We consider the subsample of CEOs who at least twice during the sample period
had options that were valued above the threshold during the fifth year (and therefore after
the vesting period). We then identify the first instance at which the CEO failed to exercise
such an option during or before the fifth year. From this point in time onward, we classify
the CEO as overconfident as long as he subsequently exhibited the behavior at least one more
time during his tenure as CEO. This last requirement lessens the probability that someone will
be misclassified as overconfident when in fact they had an instance of inside information, they
were pressured to hold a particular option by the board, they faced a particularly high tax
burden from exercise, or they simply made a mistake. Indeed, as we are mainly interested in
the “permanent” rather than “transitory” overconfidence level of a CEO, our measure targets
CEOs who “habitually” exercise options late.
