Abstract: Taking the companies which bring equity incentive into force during the period of 2006-2013 as samples, this paper adopts the Heckman method to measure the management risk preferences with the inverse Milz ratio; then it analyzes the relationship among management risk preference, equity incentive, and risk taking. The results show that the management risk preference is significantly correlated with corporate risks, that is, the management with risk preference is more inclined to take stock option incentive, while the management with risk aversion tends to restrict stock incentive. In the case of the management risk preference variables being controlled, the stock option incentive still has risk incentive effect, while the restricted stock has no risk incentive effect. Then this paper further analyzes the incentive effects of different equity incentives in companies with different property rights. The results show that in the companies implementing stock options, the risk incentive effect of state-owned enterprises is weaker than that of private enterprises, while in the companies implementing restrictive stocks, there is no significant difference between the state-owned enterprises and private enterprises.

Key words: equity incentive; risk taking; risk preference; inverse Milz ratio