Top Management Team Power in China: Measurement and Validation

We propose and validate a comprehensive measure of power for the top management teams (TMTs) of publicly listed Chinese firms. We show that our measure is positively associated with the four power dimensions developed by prior research for U.S. firms as well as three Asia-relevant power dimensions, including political capital, seniority, and gender. We find that our TMT power measure is a valid proxy for TMT power for both state-controlled firms and non-state-controlled firms. We also compare our TMT power measure with one alternative TMT power proxy based on executive compensation and find no evidence that the alternative proxy is better than our measure in capturing TMT’s true power. Further, we provide evidence that the divergence between our power proxy and the power proxy based on executive compensation reflects nonmarket institutional forces in China and has important implications for corporate outcomes. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.

The Panzar–Rosse H Statistic and Monopoly. Issues on its Use as a Market Power Measure

This note emphasizes some flaws of the Panzar–Rosse H statistic to address market power. First, I show that it is more related to the pass-through rate than to a market power measure, which implies reconsidering its interpretation and use. Second, I show that the inclusion of other strategic variables rather than prices or quantities may lead to contradictory predictions about market power. Therefore, competition authorities should refrain from using the H statistic to rule out significant market power because it is not a well-behaved measure of the degree of competition.