The Impact of CFOs' Overconfidence on the Capital Structure in Russian Companies During the Crisis

<p class="a">The current research analyzes the influence of the CFOs&rsquo; overconfidence on capital structure of the Russian companies in terms of the last financial crisis. In order to identify the main factors influencing company&rsquo;s capital structure, the traditional and behavioral theories of capital structure were considered and the main features of Russian companies that may influence capital structure were determined. For the study, the database of 94 Russian public non-financial organizations for 2006-12 years was collected, and by means of tobit-regression analysis was found that more overconfident executives choose more leveraged capital structure than less overconfident ones. Furthermore, it was shown that CFOs were not changing their behavior extensively during the crisis, and the influence of the crisis has not been confirmed. The findings of the research confirm the importance of the influence of personal managers&rsquo; qualities on capital structure of the Russian companies.</p>