The Voice of Risk: Wall Street CEOs’ Vocal Masculinity and the 2008 Financial Crisis

Abstract

Did the masculinity-driven corporate culture of Wall Street change after the 2008 global financial crisis? According to the neuroendocrinology literature, the voice pitch of a male is an ‘honest signal’ of his testosterone level that affects risk taking for social dominance. We use digitally analyzed voice pitch of 167 Wall Street male CEO interviews on CNBC during the 2008 financial crisis and find a negative association between the voice pitch of the CEO and the risk of the firm. Additionally, deep-voiced male CEOs were more likely to be fired after the crisis.

Keywords: culture, masculinity, voice pitch, financial crisis, CEO turnover, TARP, overconfidence, self-attribution bias, testosterone, media

JEL Classification: G01, G02, G20, G39