This study investigates how CEOs' experience of natural disasters and severe disease outbreaks in their formative years influences their firms' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We observe that firms whose CEOs experienced disease outbreaks akin to COVID-19 early in their lives demonstrated more conservative responses to the emergence of the COVID-19 in late February 2020, notably through a substantial slowdown in capital expenditure growth. Moreover, firms led by CEOs with early-life disease experience exhibit a more negative tone in their corporate disclosures and heightened pessimism in their earnings forecasts following the COVID-19 outbreak. These effects are more pronounced for firms in industries that were hit hard by the pandemic. Our findings suggest that severe events early in life leave indelible imprints on memory, thereby impacting CEOs’ decision-making when managing similar crises in their professional careers.

Exploring the minimum wage policy discontinuities at county borders, we find that minimum wage hikes induce industrial firms to pollute more and reduce their abatement efforts. State ownership mitigates these negative effects, suggesting its role in addressing externality. The adverse environmental impacts are attenuated by the staggered increase in pollution discharge fees across provinces. These effects are stronger for firms with higher minimum wage sensitivity, lower market power, and greater financial constraints, and for firms that are the subsidiaries of nonlisted companies. Overall, our findings highlight the unintended environmental consequences of labor market policies.