Recent years have seen a reemergence of the practice of awarding “mega grants” to CEOs. Mega grants are large, one-time equity awards granted in lieu of or in addition to annual awards with the intended purpose of providing significant incentive to the CEO to achieve long-term targets. The...

By many measures, current CEOs should be the best candidates to serve on boards of directors. They have extensive strategic, operational, and risk management expertise, as well as experiences and leadership attributes that are important for a firm’s long-term success. However, there is...

Executive compensation has become one of the most contentious topics in corporate governance. However, public perception about executive pay suffers from many misconceptions. These include the notions that:1. The ratio of CEO-to-average-worker pay is a useful statistic:2. Compensation...

A director's social and professional network contributes to his or her qualifications as a board member. In recent years, much attention has been paid to the negative aspects of inter-board connections, such as the spread of bad practices and a reduction in independence.At the same time, not...

Companies can increase executive compensation by allowing dividends to be paid on unvested restricted stocks grants, also known as stealth compensation. Examining all S&P 500 firms over the period 2003-2007, we find that more than half of the dividend paying firms allow this practice. We look at...

We examine how managerial incentives affect acquisition decisions in the banking industry. We find that higher pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS) leads to value-enhancing acquisitions. Banks whose CEOs have higher PPS have significantly better abnormal stock returns around the acquisition...

The role of the board of directors is to oversee managerial decisions and to protect the interests of shareholders. While director pay historically is a small cash fee, many corporations now use both stock and option grants as a part of a director's compensation. This paper examines whether this...