This study investigates some of the most important avenues that mangers use to manipulate the value of stock option grants. It also compares the use of these avenues in firms that issue scheduled options and in firms that issue irregular options. We document that before Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX),...

We investigate the impact of say-on-pay on 2010 executive compensation, finding affected firms reduced compensation and made it more performance-based, with that decrease being greater for firms that previously overpaid their CEOs. We also find the percentage of votes cast against executive pay...

As of February 28, 2006, 958 publicly held companies accelerated the vesting of some or all of their employee stock options in advance of adopting SFAS 123 (R). In doing so, these companies, on average, avoided $11.3 (8.4) million in pretax (after tax) expense, which represented 42 percent of...

As of February 28, 2006, 958 publicly held companies accelerated the vesting of some or all of their employee stock options in advance of adopting SFAS 123 (R). We examine both the market reaction to these accelerations, as well as the determinants of the decision. Investors, in general, react...

This study investigates the impact of job complexity and firm, as well as CFO-specific performance, on CFO compensation. We find job complexity and overall firm performance affects both CFO salary and bonus, while CFO-specific performance affects CFO bonus. Specifically, we find that CFOs are...

This study investigates the impact of job complexity and firm as well as CFO-specific performance on CFO compensation. We examine job complexity in terms of the intricacies of a firm’s operations and whether the CFO serves on the Board of Directors. Accounting and stock market rates of return...

Motivated by the significant capital allocated to repurchasing stock and its potential affect on price discovery, we develop an empirical model of changes in corporate stock repurchases. We find that share price, capital availability, dividend policy, firm size, and operating profitability...

We provide large sample evidence in response to anecdotal accounts that some managers increase corporate share repurchases in response to an increase in short selling. We discover a robust positive association exists between changes in quarterly share repurchases and contemporaneous changes in...

The 2004 American Jobs Creation Act (AJCA or the Act) was intended to encourage U.S. companies to repatriate foreign earnings and invest them domestically to increase capital spending and employment. We investigate combined effects of two tax provisions, i.e., the repatriation tax holiday and...

Prior research suggests an asymmetric relation between CEO cash compensation and firm performance as measured by market-adjusted stock returns. As discussed by Leone et al. (2006), the underlying rationale for this asymmetry is the difficulty in the ex post settling- up of cash compensation. We...