We use a unique World Bank survey of 1,088 private manufacturing firms from 18 Chinese cities over the period 2000 to 2002 to empirically examine the roles of managerial incentives and CEO characteristics in a firm's innovation activities. We look at both innovation effort (R&D intensity) and...

This study predicts and finds that chief executive officer (CEO) risk-taking incentives induced by stock option compensation increase a bank’s contribution to systemic distress risk and systemic crash risk. We also predict and find that this CEO incentive–systemic risk relation operates...