Executives' overseas background and corporate green innovation

This study examines the impact of executives' overseas background on corporate green innovation and the possible adverse selection problem in attracting overseas-returned executives to high-polluted cities. Based on the data from Chinese listed companies between 2002 and 2018, we empirically find that executives' overseas background has a significantly positive impact on corporate green innovation. In addition, it is found that air pollution results in the loss of overseas-returned executives, while the effect of executives' overseas background in stimulating corporate green innovation is more prominent in high-polluted cities, indicating that high-polluted cities should make more efforts to attract returnees. Therefore, we further explore the policy influence of executives' excess compensation and find that excess compensation in high-polluted cities weakens the positive impact of executives' overseas background, although it increases the effectiveness of importing overseas-returned executives, which means that the adverse selection caused by excess compensation in high-polluted cities is non-negligible.