Star CEOs or Political Connections? Evidence from China's Publicly Traded Firms
研究中国上市公司中担任人大代表或政协委员的“明星CEO”与有政府或军队背景的“政治关联CEO”对公司业绩和薪酬的影响，发现薪酬和业绩溢价主要源于政治关联而非明星效应。
Abstract This paper studies China's “star CEOs” defined as members of the National People's Congress (NPC) or the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and “politically connected” CEOs who have previous government or military experience. We evaluate the effect of “star CEOs” and “politically connected” CEOs on firm performance and CEO compensation. We find that announcement date returns, CEO compensation and incentives are all higher in firms that appoint “star CEOs”. However, the mechanism explaining these various premiums is largely political connectedness of these star CEOs. Our study finds only modest evidence that star‐CEO status directly determines firm performance. Our analysis strongly suggests that compensation and performance premiums are mostly driven by CEO political connections, as opposed to CEO talent/star effects.