CEO age, education, and introduction of hedging in the oil and gas industry

This study examines if a CEO’s age and education explain introduction of hedging in the oil and gas industry. We compare CEO age, college degree, and educational institutions between the hedgers that initiated use of derivatives and the nonhedgers that never used hedging. Our findings show that a hedge CEO is younger than a nonhedge CEO in the year hedging is initiated. We also find evidence that a higher percentage of the hedge CEOs have petroleum-related degrees and a smaller percentage have business degrees when compared to the nonhedge CEOs. The results of our logistic regressions indicate that CEO age explains the use of financial derivatives in the oil and gas industry. © 2013, Springer Science+Business Media New York.