Expatriate and Local CEOs: Effects on Firm Performance (joint with Miklós Koren, CEU)

Using a novel Hungarian dataset on firms and their Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), we estimate the impact of CEOs. By examining foreign acquisitions when the CEO was replaced with an expatriate or a local CEO, we address the selection into both acquisition and CEO hiring. Expatriate CEOs increase total factor productivity by 13% and domestic sales by 47%, and the effects are much larger in nontradable sectors. This suggests that expatriate CEOs perform better in domestic markets where their knowledge of the parent company and export markets is not relevant. We attribute this to expatriates possessing superior general management skills.