Till Death Do Us Part: The Effect of CEO Divorce on Firm Performance

This study examines the effect CEOs’ private life events have on their firms’ economic performance. In particular, we exploit a quasi-natural experiment provided by CEO divorce. Using a comprehensive panel data on CEOs and families of CEOs for Danish firms between 1999 and 2011 and applying a difference- in-differences methodology, we find that CEO divorce negatively affects firm economic performance. We also find that the negative effect is...