CEO-MA v1.0

CEO-MA v1.0 is an open-access dataset designed to support research in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), corporate finance, behavioral finance, and corporate governance. It contains structured data on 7,786 completed international M&A transactions conducted between 2014 and 2024, integrating transaction characteristics, firm attributes, CEO behavioral indicators, and stock market performance. The dataset was compiled by combining M&A transaction records from the Securities Data Company (SDC) database, publicly available corporate disclosures, and Yahoo Finance, followed by data cleaning, harmonization, standardization, and quality validation. CEO-MA v1.0 includes detailed information on acquisition characteristics (e.g., transaction value, payment method, ownership structure, SIC classification, cross-border and cross-industry indicators, firm size, market capitalization, and country), together with CEO behavioral proxies such as acquisition experience, hubris, learning, successive acquisitions, successive successful deals (SSD), cumulative successful acquisitions, and inter-deal timing. It also provides Cumulative Abnormal Return (CAR) as the primary measure of post-acquisition market performance. The repository includes a data dictionary, metadata, variable descriptions, preprocessing documentation, descriptive statistics, and reproducibility materials. The dataset is intended for research in corporate finance, strategic management, econometrics, machine learning, deep learning, explainable AI, and predictive analytics, enabling studies on acquisition performance, CEO behavior, and data-driven decision-making.