本文利用我国沪深A股上市公司2005~2014年的专利数据,分析了高管团队薪酬差距对企业创新的影响。结果显示,随着高管团队薪酬差距的扩大,专利申请显著增加,特别是发明专利显著增加。说明高管团队薪酬差距的扩大能够激励高管进行有效的创新决策,推动高质量发明专利的产出,企业创新的质量普遍提高。分组分析发现,由于非国企高管团队薪酬差距激励明显,融资约束程度强的企业需要通过创新活动传递积极信号,因此这两类企业的创新表现更加突出。
Using the patent applications data of listed firms in China from 2005 to 2014, this paper examines how the pay gap among executive team influences corporate innovation. The results show that the number of patent applications especially the number of invention patent applications increases significantly along with the increase of the pay gap. It means the increase of the pay gap among executive team could incent executives making innovation decisions, promoting the output of high-quality invention patents, and the quality of innovation improves generally. Especially, the incentive effect of the pay gap among executive team is obvious in non-SOEs and the firms with high financing constraints need innovation activities to show positive signals. Therefore, the firms in these two groups have better innovation behaviors.