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This paper contributes to the literature by examining whether the age and gender of the firm's top executives influence market‐based measures of firm risk. Using data on the S&P 1500 firms, we document that chief executive officer (CEO) and chief financial officer (CFO) age and gender have a direct effect on market‐based firm risk measures in addition to the indirect influence they may have through corporate policy choices. Specifically, we find that firms led by older CEOs and CFOs have less volatile stock returns and lower idiosyncratic risk. Although the relationship between executive gender and firm risk is more equivocal, our results suggest that female‐led firms are associated with lower levels of total and idiosyncratic risks after controlling for firm‐specific attributes, policy choices, and managerial risk‐taking incentives. We also document that CEO and CFO age and gender do not influence the level of systematic risk. Overall, our empirical findings demonstrate that the age and gender of the firm's top executives may have important implications for firm riskiness.

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The authors studied the complex relationship between information supply and demand using newspaper articles and web searches that reflect investors' crash fears. They report that more web searches lead to more news, whereas more news does not have that effect on web search in the future. The authors show also that web searches have an immediate effect on stock market returns and the VIX implied volatility, whereas the effect of news articles lasts longer, up to 11 weeks. The results suggest collectively that the web searches related to market crashes lead both the printed news stories about market crashes.

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