The relationships between CEO characteristics and strategic risk-taking in family firms

Abstract

We examine the influences of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics on family firms’ strategic risk-taking. Building on upper echelons theory, we investigate the influences of CEO family relationships, the CEO professional education, other career experiences, tenure, and career horizon have on the risk level a company takes. By analyzing a sample of 107 Italian family firms listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, we find that company’s risk-taking significantly and negatively relates to CEO family relationship and professional education, but positively to CEO career horizon. This provides support to the argument that such CEO personal characteristics are key factors in explaining differences in risk-taking among family firms. Further, our analysis of control variables shows that family firms’ risk-taking relates positively to board size and negatively to company size. These results suggest that company and board characteristics also significantly influence the risk levels taken by a company.     

Political institutions and corporate risk-taking: International evidence

Tapping into firm-level accounting data across 90 countries over a 26-year period, we find that sound political institutions are positively associated with corporate risk-taking. This result is economically significant, robust to alternative proxies for corporate risk-taking and political institutions, and continues to hold after mitigating endogeneity concerns of political institutions. We also collect evidence that sound political institutions may compensate for weak legal institutions in inducing corporate risk-taking. We argue that sound political institutions improve the investment environment for firms and can induce higher levels of corporate risk-taking, which is ultimately associated with economic growth.     

Fleeing entrepreneurs: Foreign residency right and corporate risk-taking

We use a unique sample of Chinese firms to investigate the impact of the foreign residency right (FRR) of a firm’s controlling person on corporate risk-taking. Our findings suggest that the controlling person’s FRR is negatively associated with corporate risk-taking, and the effect of FRR on risk-taking is significantly reduced by Operation Fox Hunt (a program for actively pursuing fled criminals) or when the foreign country has an extradition treaty with China. Our results are robust to tests for endogeneity, alternative metrics of FRR, and risk-taking. We also find that severe financial constraints and a decline in R&D activities are the channels through which FRR reduces corporate risk-taking. Additional analyses show that the effect of FRR on corporate risk-taking is more pronounced when (a) controlling persons hold foreign nationality, (b) controlling persons are powerful or older, or (c) the investors of the firm face greater information asymmetry.     

Managing decision-making with certainty of threat

Several factors, such as emotion and uncertainty of the outcome, influence decision-making. We assessed decision-making during a risky event (natural hazard, focusing here on two types of volcanic threats) by manipulating the certainty of lethal threat in an information campaign. We hypothesized that the reduction of uncertainty of lethal threat in an information campaign would improve behavior through more suitable choices by reducing the use of emotional choices. In the scenario that occurred in a familiar place, participants who received information with uncertainty of lethal threat presented more emotional and comfortable choices, such as staying at home, rather than detached ones, such as leaving the area. These were either appropriate (for volcanic ash cloud) or inappropriate (for pyroclastic flow). The certainty hypothesis was partially validated, as certainty influenced the quality of choice in the scenarios that took place at home. Furthermore, participants in the volcanic disaster context presented less suitable decisions compared to those in the neutral context, which was discussed in terms of the presence of emotions, such as fear of volcanic eruption. Our results highlight the importance of controlling the comforting emotional aspect of the home environment in any information communication.     

货币政策与银行风险承担

本文从货币政策影响银行风险承担的作用机理入手,总结了风险定价模型效应、逐利锦标赛效应、思维定势效应和中央银行沟通反馈效应等四条货币政策对银行风险承担影响的渠道,并以2004~2010年中国16家上市银行的数据为样本,采用系统广义矩估计方法实证分析中国货币政策对银行风险承担的影响。实证分析结果表明:我国货币政策与银行风险呈负相关关系,即宽松的货币政策鼓励了银行的风险承担;随着存款利率水平和存款准备金率的降低,银行的风险承担提高;同时中国银行的风险承担与GDP的增长呈正相关关系,即具有显著顺周期特征。     

储户预期与金融稳定

本文利用中国88家银行的面板数据及中国人民银行的储户问卷调查数据,研究储户对未来经济和收入感知的预期对金融稳定性的影响。研究发现,通过储户资产配置、货币政策预期与银行风险承担三个渠道储户预期水平上升有助于提高金融稳定性;机构储户对金融稳定性的边际影响高于居民储户;城市储户的预防动机需求会降低金融稳定性;从系统重要性银行角度看,储户预期对非系统重要性银行的影响更大,储户对房价信息与股市波动等信息的适应性学习会降低储户预期对金融稳定性的影响。     

股权结构对财险公司风险承担行为影响的实证研究

本文从理论层面上剖析了公司股权结构对风险承担的影响及具体作用机理,然后基于2002～2018年我国77家财险公司的非平衡面板数据构建联立方程模型,利用三阶段最小二乘法(3SLS)进行参数估计.研究发现,股权结构对我国财险公司的风险承担行为存在显著影响.具体而言,股权集中度对承保风险存在显著正向影响,表现出“侵占效应”;...     

高管研发背景与权力对企业风险承担的影响

利用沪深A股的非金融类上市公司样本,实证检验了高管研发背景与权力对企业风险承担的影响。结果发现,高管研发背景与权力均对企业风险承担具有显著促进作用,上述结论在进行系列稳健性检验后依然成立。机制检验发现,企业创新投入增加在高管研发背景与权力促进企业风险承担的过程中起到了部分中介效应。进一步区分高技术行业发现,高管研发背景对企业风险承担的促进作用仅在高技术行业显著,而研发背景高管权力对企业风险承担的促进效应则在高技术与非高技术行业均显著。