Pilot-CEOs and Real Earnings Managemet AlyakoobAli Salem 2020 <p>I start with a sample of 26,998 CEOs from the Compustat Executive Compensation (ExecuComp) database starting January 1, 1991 and ending January 1, 2009. I then match the sample with the FAA’s Airmen Certification database using the CEO’s first name, middle initial, and last name. Names with a match are coded as pilots and names without a match are coded as non-pilots. Following Roychowdhury (2006) I remove all firms in regulated industries (SIC codes between 4400 and 5000) as well as banks and financial institutions (SIC codes between 6000 and 6500). The resulting sample consists of 255 pilot-CEOs and 3,935 non-pilot-CEOs. I then merge the CEO dataset to the Compustat Fundamentals Annual database to obtain a final sample consisting of 1,038 CEO-pilot firm-years and 18,455 CEO-non-pilot firm-years. All variables are winsorized at the 1% and 99% levels.</p><p><a></a> </p><div><br><div><p><br></p></div></div>