The Voice of Risk: Wall Street CEOs' Voice Pitch and the 2008 Financial Crisis^*

Abstract

The pitch of a male voice is an honest signal of his threat potential coming from testosterone. Recognizing endogenous matches between firms and CEOs, we propose to use voice pitch of the CEO as a proxy for the unobservable risk‐taking strategy of the firm. Using digitally analyzed male CEO voice pitch in 167 CNBC interviews during the 2008 global financial crisis, we find that deep‐voiced Wall Street CEOs (i) managed riskier firms, (ii) received more equity‐based compensation before the crisis and (iii) were more likely to be fired after the crisis, controlling for economic incentives, overconfidence, and narcissism.