The Wolves of Wall Street? Managerial Attributes and Bank Risk

We investigate the role of executive-specific attributes (or ‘styles’) in explaining bank business models beyond pay-per-performance incentives. We decompose the variation in business models and document that the ‘style’ of members of a bank’s top management team is reflected in key bank policy choices. Manager styles far outrank executive compensation and other observable manager variables in terms of their ability to describe variation in bank business models. Bank manager styles also explain differences in risk and performance across banks. Finally, we combine manager styles from various bank policies to derive manager profiles that are associated with manager’s personal risk preferences, board characteristics and whether or not managers will be appointed as CEO during their careers.