CEO Characteristics and Capital Structure Across Continents

Chief executive officers influence how firms balance debt, equity, and financial flexibility. This narrative review examines how managerial beliefs, founder status, and governance relate to capital structure, drawing on selected evidence from North America, Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and Oceania. The literature indicates that overconfidence can increase the preference for debt relative to equity without necessarily increasing total borrowing. Founder leadership is associated with more conservative financing in U.S. utilities, whereas entrepreneurial proxies are associated with higher leverage in Brazilian research. These differences may reflect both institutional conditions and the imperfect comparability of CEO measures. Related evidence from Bangladesh and U.S. monetary tightening episodes connects financing choices to profitability and resilience. The review argues that CEO characteristics should be evaluated jointly with governance, industry, and credit conditions. Stronger identification and comparable measures are needed before these associations can support general causal conclusions.