CEO Power,CEO Age and the Policy Instrument Property of State-Owned-Enterprises

In this paper, we examine the relationship between CEO power, CEO age and the efficiency of policy implementation in listed corporations controlled by each province’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) in China. We find that CEOs with more power implement policy are more efficiently. We also find that younger powerful CEOs will act more effectively than their older competitors. The reason for the difference is that younger powerful CEOs in state-owned companies are incentivized to implement their policy tasks to gain promotions or political capital. Our results are important to future SOE reform and to understanding the characteristics of SOEs as policy instruments.