This study investigates how CEOs' experience of natural disasters and severe disease outbreaks in their formative years influences their firms' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We observe that firms whose CEOs experienced disease outbreaks akin to COVID-19 early in their lives demonstrated more conservative responses to the emergence of the COVID-19 in late February 2020, notably through a substantial slowdown in capital expenditure growth. Moreover, firms led by CEOs with early-life disease experience exhibit a more negative tone in their corporate disclosures and heightened pessimism in their earnings forecasts following the COVID-19 outbreak. These effects are more pronounced for firms in industries that were hit hard by the pandemic. Our findings suggest that severe events early in life leave indelible imprints on memory, thereby impacting CEOs’ decision-making when managing similar crises in their professional careers.

中文翻译：

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早期生活经历和首席执行官对 COVID-19 的反应


本研究调查了首席执行官在成长时期经历的自然灾害和严重疾病爆发如何影响其公司对美国 COVID-19 大流行的反应。我们观察到，首席执行官在其早期经历过类似 COVID-19 的疾病爆发的公司对 2020 年 2 月下旬的 COVID-19 的出现表现出更为保守的反应，特别是资本支出增长大幅放缓。此外，由具有早期疾病经历的首席执行官领导的公司在公司披露中表现出更加消极的基调，并在 COVID-19 爆发后对盈利预测更加悲观。对于受疫情重创行业的企业来说，这些影响更为明显。我们的研究结果表明，生命早期的严重事件会在记忆中留下不可磨灭的印记，从而影响首席执行官在处理职业生涯中类似危机时的决策。