主讲人：张霞副教授，华盛顿大学塔科马校区米尔加德商学院
主题：信用评级机构如何评估风险容忍型首席执行官：过度反应还是审慎考量？（How Do Rating Agencies Evaluate Risk-Tolerant CEOs: Overreaction or Calibrated Scrutiny?）
时间：2025年11月5日下午14:30-16:00
地点：学术会堂606会议室
主持人：谢蓉蓉副教授，中央财经大学会计学院
摘要：This study examines whether rating agencies assign worse ratings to firms led by risk-tolerant managers and whether such rating assignment compromises or enhances rating accuracy. Using pilot licensing status as a proxy for CEO risk tolerance, we find that firms led by pilot CEOs receive worse credit ratings than those led by non-pilot CEOs. This suggests that agencies view highly risk-tolerant CEOs as elevating credit risk and penalize their firms accordingly. Through detailed mechanism analyses, we open the “black box” of how agencies evaluate management by showing that they perceive highly risk-tolerant CEOs as more likely to adopt aggressive financial policies, engage less in (effective) risk management, and pursue other types of aggressive or risky behaviors—actions that increase firm credit risk. Interviews with rating managers confirm these mechanisms. The negative association between CEO risk tolerance and credit ratings is stronger in firms with high financial risks and in those with CEOs who dominate the management team. Moreover, we find that firms with highly risk-tolerant CEOs exhibit higher absolute and relative rating accuracy. This finding suggests that possible reputational costs from rating failures motivate agencies to exert greater effort or reduce strategic bias from the issuer-pay model when rating firms with highly risk-tolerant CEOs. Overall, our findings reveal that while rating agencies penalize firms led by highly risk-tolerant managers with worse rating levels, they do so without compromising rating accuracy.
主讲人简介：张霞现任华盛顿大学塔科马校区米尔加德商学院的会计学副教授。她的研究成果已发表在多家同行评审的高质量期刊上，包括 Management Science、Contemporary Accounting Research、Journal of Corporate Finance、Journal of Business Finance & Accounting、Journal of Management Accounting Research、Journal of Accounting and Public Policy 和 Accounting Horizons。
撰稿 | 谢蓉蓉 林雯
校对 | 王彦超 王伟
排版 | 刘怡帆
审核 | 吴溪
