关键词: 年轻高管, 股价崩盘风险, 个体认知观, 代理冲突观

Abstract: From the perspective of stock price crash risk, this paper analyzes the economic consequences and mechanism of the young executives' risk preference. Based on the theoretical deduction of “individual cognition view” and “agency conflict view”, using the data of Chinese Ashare nonfinancial listed companies, this paper finds that young executives will significantly increase the risk of stock price crash, and this negative impact mainly exists in private enterprises. Further tests find young executives choose more risky investment projects that could rapidly increase their personal returns in investment decisions. At the same time, the aggravating effect of young executives on stock price crash risk is more pronounced for firms where executives receive compensation, and the stock price crash risk will obviously decrease with the higher proportion of independent directors. These findings indicate that the risk preference of young executives at individual cognitive level is distorted by the agency conflict in the pursuit of selfinterest maximization, which provides empirical evidence for the “agency conflict view” of young executives' risk preference.

Key words: young executive, stock price crash risk, individual cognition view, agency conflict view