{"title":"Executive pay restrictions, political promotion, and firm efficiency: Evidence from China","authors":"Wentao Li , Xiaoke Wang , Lisheng Yu","doi":"10.1016/j.pacfin.2024.102568","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Using the mandatory reform in executive pay restrictions within Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate the effects of compensation incentives and political promotion on firm efficiency. Our difference-in-differences analyses reveal that firm efficiency significantly decreases following the reform, and political promotion can attenuate this negative association. Firm risk-taking is a potential mechanism underlying this observed phenomenon. The negative relationship and mitigation effect are more pronounced for central SOEs and commercial class II SOEs. Furthermore, these findings exhibit variations based on distinctive attributes in compensation structures, CEO characteristics, and political promotion ranks. Overall, our study underscores the complementary roles of explicit and implicit incentives within SOEs, providing a strong rationale for government regulation and reform of executive compensation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48074,"journal":{"name":"Pacific-Basin Finance Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Pacific-Basin Finance Journal","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927538X24003202","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Using the mandatory reform in executive pay restrictions within Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as a quasi-natural experiment, we investigate the effects of compensation incentives and political promotion on firm efficiency. Our difference-in-differences analyses reveal that firm efficiency significantly decreases following the reform, and political promotion can attenuate this negative association. Firm risk-taking is a potential mechanism underlying this observed phenomenon. The negative relationship and mitigation effect are more pronounced for central SOEs and commercial class II SOEs. Furthermore, these findings exhibit variations based on distinctive attributes in compensation structures, CEO characteristics, and political promotion ranks. Overall, our study underscores the complementary roles of explicit and implicit incentives within SOEs, providing a strong rationale for government regulation and reform of executive compensation.
期刊介绍:
The Pacific-Basin Finance Journal is aimed at providing a specialized forum for the publication of academic research on capital markets of the Asia-Pacific countries. Primary emphasis will be placed on the highest quality empirical and theoretical research in the following areas: • Market Micro-structure; • Investment and Portfolio Management; • Theories of Market Equilibrium; • Valuation of Financial and Real Assets; • Behavior of Asset Prices in Financial Sectors; • Normative Theory of Financial Management; • Capital Markets of Development; • Market Mechanisms.