In three self-contained essays, this dissertation deals with the impact of board structure on firm performance and with determinants of executive compensation, director compensation, and payout policy. Each of the three chapters is based on panel data sets of German firms. Distinguishing...

My dissertation examines a board's decision to hire a star CEO and the implication of such decision on the new CEO compensation and firm performance. I develop a new methodology to identify a star CEO by analyzing the texts contained in 18,240 Wall Street Journal news articles. Unlike previous...

This dissertation contains three essays on financial reporting, tax, and politics. The first essay explores whether the tax authority is able to generate spillover effects for auditors. The IRS can generate spillover effects for auditors, as a strong IRS increases manager’s incentives to...

CEO Entschädigungen sind immer noch ein bedeutendes Thema. Nachdem die Unternehmensskandale und die starken öffentlichen Widerstände gegen die Überzahlungen, Wissenschaftlern, politischen Entscheidungsträgern, Politikern und den Interessengruppen ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf die Angemessenheit...