This study provides evidence suggesting that the number of shoes that a CEO buys in a year has a positive impact on a firm's value, consistent with the beneficial effects of shoes on walking and hence performance. For each of the years 2001 to 2011, we define S&P 1500 CEOs as shoe buyers if they buy at least 15 pairs of shoes. Shoe Buyer CEOs enhance performance by improving R&D productivity rather than spending more on R&D. Additionally, Shoe Buyer CEOs are more effective when they do not wear suits. Our identification strategy includes CEO-firm fixed effects, instrumental variables, permutation tests, random effects, and time-varying CEO, firm and industry effects. We rule out several alternative explanations, including the pilot hypothesis (Sunder, et al., JFE 2015), fitness hypothesis (Limback, et al. WFA 2016), leading us to conclude that CEO shoe buying captures the personality trait of attention seeking. Attention seeking combines risk taking with a desire to pursue novel experiences and has been associated with creativity. We do not find similar results for CEOs who buy hats, suggesting that spending habits alone does not explain our findings.
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