Many commentators have suggested that companies pay top executives with deferred compensation, a type of incentive known as inside debt. Recent SEC disclosure reforms greatly increased the transparency of deferred compensation. We investigate stockholder and bondholder reactions to companies’...

Traditional stock option grant is the most common form of incentive pay in executive compensation. Applying a principal-agent analysis, we find this common practice suboptimal and firms are better off linking incentive pay to average stock prices. Among other benefits, averaging reduces...

This study investigates whether information about Chief Executive Officer (CEO) incentives is useful for predicting future earnings. We find that in companies with higher CEO equity incentives, current year earnings are more informative of future earnings than in other companies. Additionally,...