Abstract
This paper investigates if government awards can act as instruments that influence corporate behaviour. For identification I use the staggered introduction of orders of merit in six German states after the reunification. The introduction of orders leads to a fall in profitability but an increase in employment. However, CEOs who ultimately receive the awards are not running less profitable firms than CEOs who do not win awards but they employ more people. The performance of the honoured CEOs does not worsen after they have received an order. Overall, the results suggest that government awards function as economic instruments of governance.