What Do CEOs Do?

Résumé

We develop a methodology to collect and analyze time diaries of top executives. Our idea -sketched out in a simple theoretical set-up -is that CEO time is a scarce resource and that its allocation can help us identify the firm's priorities as well as the presence of governance issues. We record the work-related activities of 103 CEOs of top-600 Italian firms over a pre-specified week. We find that CEOs di¤er a lot in how much time they spend at work and how much time they devote to outsiders (e.g. consultants, investors, banks, etc) vs insiders (employees of the firm). We relate these differences to firm performance and firm characteristics: we interpret the empirical findings within two versions of our model, one with effective corporate governance and one with imperfect governance.