Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/260506 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 936
Publisher: 
Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance, London
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.
Subjects: 
CEO political ideology
dividend policy
downsizing
stakeholder management
Covid-19
JEL: 
G35
G34
M51
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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