金融与财务学系列讲座之338期

Time：11:00-12:00, Monday, June 8, 2026

Location: Room 603, Starr Building（史带楼603室）

Host：Prof. Xintong Zhan （战昕彤 教授）

Department of Finance, FDSM

Topic: The Captain's Secret Lifeboat: Evidence from CEO Compensation Policy

Speaker: Prof. ZOU Hong (邹宏 教授)

University of Hong Kong

Abstract: Using hand-collected data from proxy statements for a comprehensive sample of U.S. firms, we examine how requiring firms to disclose whether they allow executives to hedge the downside risk of their company shareholdings affects CEO compensation policy. Employing a difference-in-differences design, we find that treatment firms reduce the proportion of stock awards and increase the share of option grants in CEO compensation, with no change in total pay levels. This shift in compensation policy is concentrated among firms with weaker governance. The disclosure requirement appears to have led to certain reduced risk-taking and increased earnings management. Compared with the matched control group and other treatment firms, treatment firms fetched higher stock valuations when their CEOs did not reduce share ownership around the disclosure mandate. We find very little significant change in other firm outcomes over our relatively short analysis window. Overall, the evidence points to both the benefits and some unintended effects of the disclosure requirement.

Bio: ZOU Hong is a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong and he is also an alumnus of School of Management, Fudan University. He was ranked as one of the HKU Scholars in the world’s Top 1% based on Thomson Clarivate Analytics’ Essential Science Indicators in the 10-year period (2008-2018) and has been  consistently ranked in the top 10% of Authors on SSRN by all-time downloads. His research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, risk management, financial services, household finance, climate change, FinTech, and the Chinese financial market. He published 52 peer-reviewed journal articles in English and his research works appear in top finance journals (Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies), Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Management Science), top accounting journals (e.g., Journal of Accounting and Economics), top international business journals (e.g., Journal of International and Business Studies), top insurance journals (e.g., Journal of Risk and Insurance), and economics journals (e.g., Journal of Law and Economics). He won 11 international research awards and also published 25 journal or news articles in Chinese (e.g., Economic Research). He received six competitive GRF grants as the primary investigator funded by the Hong Kong SAR Research Grant Council. His research works are featured in the CFA Digest, the Handbook of Insurance, the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation, the Columbia Law School’s blog on corporations and capital markets (Blue Sky), the NBER Working Paper series, the European Corporate Governance Institute – Finance Working Paper series, and two finance textbooks. He also coauthored FinTech cases Ping An OneConnect Virtual Bank (平安一賬通虛擬銀行 Data driven banking business) and Micro Connect (滴灌通 Solution to Micro and Small Business financing). He is currently an associate editor for British Accounting Review, Decision Sciences, and China Finance Review International. (https://www.hkubs.hku.hk/people/hong-zou/)