Financial expert CEOs: Evidence from purchase price allocation

Drawing from the Upper Echelons Theory (UET), this study assesses how firms’ accounting outcomes at the transaction level are influenced by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)’s individual characteristic of financial expertise and managerial status from structural and relational power. We use Purchase Price Allocation (PPA) as a key empirical context, given its technical nature. Utilizing a proprietary dataset that includes information on business combination and key officers’ characteristics, we employ multivariate analysis to explore the rela- tionship between the CEO financial expertise and reporting transparency, and the moderating role of the CEO’s power. Our findings indicate that firms led by financial expert CEOs are more likely to allocate the purchase price to specific assets. Furthermore, CEOs’ structural power enhances the impact of financial expertise on PPA de- cisions, whereas relational power does not support a similar effect. Robustness checks confirm the validity of our results. This research contributes to the accounting literature by extending UET predictions, highlighting that accounting outcomes are systematically influenced by CEO financial expertise and illustrating how different managerial status within corporate governance affect financial reporting transparency.