No abstract

No abstract

We compare chief executive officer (CEO) turnover in public and large private firms. Public firms have higher turnover rates and exhibit greater turnover-performance sensitivity (TPS) than private firms. When we control for pre-turnover performance, performance improvements are greater for private firms than for public firms. We investigate whether these differences are due to differences in quality of accounting information, the CEO candidate pool, CEO power, board structure, ownership structure, investor horizon, or certain unobservable differences between public and private firms. One factor contributing to public firms' higher turnover rates and greater TPS appears to be investor myopia.

We examine the effects of nonmonetary benefits on overall executive compensation from the perspective of the living environment at the firm headquarters. Companies in polluted, high crime rate, or otherwise unpleasant locations pay higher compensation to their chief executive officers (CEOs) than companies located in more livable locations. This premium in pay for quality of life is stronger when firms face tougher competition in the managerial labor market, when the CEO is hired from outside, and when the CEO has short-term career concerns. Overall, the geographic desirability of the corporate headquarters is an effective substitute for CEO monetary pay.

We compare innovation strategies of public and private firms based on a large sample over the period 1997–2008. We find that public firms’ patents rely more on existing knowledge, are more exploitative, and are less likely in new technology classes, while private firms’ patents are broader in scope and more exploratory. We investigate whether these strategies are due to differences in firm information environments, CEO risk preferences, firm life cycles, corporate acquisition policies, or investment horizons between these two groups of firms. Our evidence suggests that the shorter investment horizon associated with public equity markets is a key explanatory factor.