The Wall Street Journal [subscription required] details some fascinating research on how activities in a CEO's private life affect his or her company's profitability or stock price. The most useful idea here is that investors can use Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Google Earth to spot short selling opportunities.

One aspect of this research that did not surprise me was that if the CEO builds a huge home -- greater than 10,000 square feet -- the company's stock price declines. I have long noticed that when a company builds a huge new corporate headquarters building or names a sports stadium after itself, trouble often follows for investors in its stock. The reason for this link? The CEO is more focused on personal glorification than on expanding profits.

But what I found surprising and intrusive was that deaths in a CEO's family influence company profitability, according to a study by Danish researchers of 75,000 companies there. Here's the post-event change in return on assets of various deaths in a CEO's family:

As mama to two unruly and willful little boys and possessor of a fairly good temper, I struggle with the advice from experts re: spanking. "They" say that spanking "slows mental development and hinders achievement." Naturally "they" are not saying such things while faced with a four-year-old who looks you right in the eyes and throws his Percy the tank engine toy at his baby brother's head. Anyway.

The experts are up in arms because of a statistically insignificant survey released claiming that most CEOs were spanked as children. In other news, most CEOs were raised in the 40s, 50s and 60s. File that one away in the "do you understand the relationship between cause and effect?" cabinet.

While I look hard to find the reason USA Today felt it necessary to release this bit of trivia as "news," I'm nonetheless interested in the whole topic. And I'm wondering: should we reinstate spanking for CEOs? No, not as a parenting tactic for future CEOs (my son breathes a sigh of relief), but as a measure to reign in some of the bad behavior of CEOs in the boardroom today.

If they're going to act like children, why not treat them as such? Maybe a good wooden spoon hanging over the conference table at Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) might have kept Patricia Dunn from listening to that feasibility study on whether planting spies at the Wall Street Journal was a good idea. Or could it have dissuaded Steve Jobs from accepting the plan to back-date stock options at Apple Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)? Maybe if Sumner Redstone was afraid of a good strapping he'd reduce his salary at Viacom, Inc. (NYSE:VIA) a bit more.

It's at least worth a try!