Do Product Market Threats Discipline Corporate Misconduct?
研究发现，面临更强产品市场竞争威胁的企业更少发生违规行为且支付更低罚款，竞争通过增加违规预期损失来减少管理松懈，对采用ESG激励和改善工人安全也有促进作用。
Firms with more competitive threats from the product market are less likely to commit violations and pay lower penalties. These findings are robust to alternative measures, specifications, and subsamples, as well as different attempts that mitigate endogeneity concerns. Further analyses reveal that the disciplining effect of competition is more pronounced when managers have greater incentives to shirk and when internal governance is weaker, and that violations are associated with poor product market performance only in the presence of competitive pressure. Firms under competitive pressure are more likely to adopt ESG-related incentives in executive compensation contracts and exhibit better worker safety practices. Overall, our evidence suggests that product market threats reduce managerial slack in combating misconduct by increasing the expected damage of violations.