Usual measures of the risk-taking incentives of bank CEOs do not capture the risk-shifting incentives that the exposure of a CEO's wealth to his firm's stock price (delta) creates in highly levered firms. We find evidence consistent with the importance of these incentives for bank CEOs: In a sample of large U.S. financial firms, a higher pre-crisis delta is associated with a significantly higher probability of failure during the 2007-2010 financial crisis in highly levered firms, but not in less levered firms.

We propose a simple measure of the risk-taking incentives of the CEOs of highly levered financial institutions, levered delta, which captures the incentives to take on risk generated by CEOs' stock holdings. Using this measure, we find that stronger CEO risk-taking incentives prior to the 2007-2010 financial crisis are associated with a higher probability of bank failure during the crisis. We find no evidence that risk-taking incentives or bank failure are related to corporate governance failures. However, CEOs' risk-taking incentives appear to be aligned with shareholders' incentives to shift risk to other claim holders. We propose a simple measure of the risk-taking incentives of the CEOs of highly levered financial institutions, levered delta, which captures the incentives to take on risk generated by CEOs' stock holdings. Using this measure, we find that stronger CEO risk-taking incentives prior to the 2007-2010 financial crisis are associated with a higher probability of bank failure during the crisis. We find no evidence that risk-taking incentives or bank failure are related to corporate governance failures. However, CEOs' risk-taking incentives appear to be aligned with shareholders' incentives to shift risk to other claim holders. Keywords

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