| Variable symbol | Variable meaning | Variable description |
| R&D | Innovation investment | The ratio of the company’s R&D investment to the total assets at the beginning of the period, taking the percentage |
| PGap1 | Executive external compensation gap | The ratio of the average salary of executives to the average salary of the industry |
| PGap2 | Executive external compensation gap | Standard deviation between the average salary of executives and the average salary difference of the industry |
| Ability | CEO talent | It is obtained by fitting the DEA-TOBIT two-stage model. See model (1) (2) for details. |
| State | Company Type | Virtual variable, if the actual controller is a state-owned company, the value is 1, otherwise 0 |
| Mgr | Management shareholding ratio | The ratio of executives holding company stocks |
| Inst | Institutional shareholding ratio | The ratio of institutional investors holding company stocks |
| Roa | Return on Assets | Company net profit/total assets |
| TQ | Tobin Q | Company market value/asset replacement cost |
| Lev | Debt level | Company debt/total assets |
| Size | Company Size | Total assets of the company, take the natural logarithm |
| H5 | Equity balance | Shareholding ratio of the top five shareholders |
| Dual | Two positions | If the CEO also serves as the chairman, the value is 1, otherwise it is 0. |
| Age | Business age | The number of years since the company was listed, taking the natural logarithm |
| Year | years | Year dummy variable |
| IND | Industry | Industry dummy variable |