CEO education in Russia: First systematic evidence and a research agenda

Abstract

We use a novel hand-collected dataset to provide first systematic evidence on CEO education in Russian publicly traded companies over 2009–2020, including its link to other characteristics of CEOs and key attributes of firms. We find that almost all CEOs in Russia have higher education, that PhD degrees are unusually common, while MBA degrees are relatively rare, that CEOs with different levels of education differ among a number of key socio-demographic characteristics and that the appointment of CEOs with various educational levels is systematically related to firm-level attributes, including ownership and governance structure. In particular, PhD CEOs, who are relatively older, are more likely to have prior connections to government and also tend to be chosen by companies with state ownership, while MBA CEOs, who are relatively younger, are more likely to be chosen by companies with foreign ownership. An important implication is that establishing a causal effect of CEO education on firm behavior and performance requires addressing endogeneity problems caused by potential omitted variables at the CEO level and non-random selection of CEOs by different types of firms. The article outlines several areas for future research.