This dissertation is composed of a set of studies that examine the incentives of senior executives and the matching between executives and firms. In one essay, I examine the incentives of different managers to strategically time their disclosure of insider trades. I find evidence consistent with the hypothesis that insiders choose the timing of their disclosures to minimize any negative information signals that may be conveyed by their trading decisions. In a second essay, I consider the matching process between a firm’s real assets and its managerial human capital. I find that certain types of CEO educational profiles are highly correlated with firm and industry characteristics. This evidence indicates that educational backgrounds capture important managerial characteristics that have a significant impact on the optimal matching process between CEOs and firms. In a final essay, I examine the role of a firm’s ownership structure on the types of senior managers that the firm is able to attract. I find that the presence of certain types of block owners leads to a substantive constraint in the set of candidates that are willing to consider leading a firm, thus suggesting a substantial human capital cost to certain firm ownership structures.
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