Industry tournament incentives and corporate innovation
研究了CEO面临的行业锦标赛激励（外部薪酬差距）如何促进企业创新，发现外部薪酬差距越大，后续创新产出及其经济价值越高，且该效应通过增加企业特质风险来实现。
Abstract Our paper examines the relationship between industry tournament incentives for CEOs and corporate innovation. We find that the external pay gap is positively associated with subsequent innovation output and its economic value. Our results are robust to using different industry classifications, alternative measures of industry tournament incentives and innovation, and various controls for corporate governance, business strategy, and CEO attributes. We employ a quasi‐natural experiment and an instrumental‐variable approach to mitigate endogeneity concerns. We also find evidence of a positive and significant relationship between industry tournament incentives and idiosyncratic risk. Overall, the evidence is consistent with our contention that aspirant CEOs undertake innovation projects which can generate uncertain but potentially rewarding outcomes that increase the likelihood of the aspirant standing out and winning the tournament or extracting the tournament‐induced benefits internally.