Last year, a study called Where are the Shareholders’ Estates? by Arizona State University professor Crocker Liu and New York University professor David Yermack asserted: “Future company performance deteriorates when CEOs acquire extremely large or costly mansions and estates.”

Does their thesis hold up? Minyanville took a look at photographs of actual CEO homes and snapshots of their company’s stocks to find out.

Here’s Apple’s (AAPL) performance over the past five years. Not too shabby.



And here’s Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ house, on Waverley Street in Palo Alto, CA. Nice, but nothing outrageously extravagant.



How about the richest man in America, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) founder Warren Buffett, who lives in the same Omaha house he bought in 1958 for $31,500?

Here’s the house:



And here's what his company's done since 1990:



And on the other side of the square-footage/stock performance ratio?

Let’s take a look at the Blackstone Group (BX) CEO Steve Schwarzman and his wife live in a 35-room, 20,000 square-foot Park Avenue triplex with a gym, steam room, sauna, billiards room, screening room and servants’ quarters that include their own dining room, three bedrooms and two baths.

Here’s what Blackstone’s done since their IPO in June:



Now, you may be asking, “Does the same idea hold true for CEO yachts?”

Below is Oracle (ORCL) CEO Larry Ellison’s 453-foot dinghy, “Rising Sun”:



And below is what Oracle's done this year:



Choppy seas not nearly as impressive as the chief executive’s cruiseliner.

How about CEO cars?

Granted, he won it in a raffle (which must have been rigged), but embattled former Countrywide (CFC) CEO Angelo Mozilo’s $170,000 Lamborghini Gallardo looks absolutely gorgeous when compared to Countrywide’s one-year chart:





Of course, a stock can go sideways if the people at the top live on opposite ends of the spectrum.

While Bill Gates resides comfortably in a $140 million, 66,000 square foot property, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer lives in a more modest 4,100 square foot home valued at about $8 million.

$7,999,985.25 less than a case of six Mennen (CL) Speed Sticks from Amazon.com (AMZN).