We survey directors and investors on the objectives, constraints, and determinants of CEO pay. 67% of directors would sacrifice shareholder value to avoid controversy on CEO pay, implying they face significant constraints other than participation and incentive compatibility. These constraints...

We show theoretically and empirically that executives are paid less for their own firm's performance and more for their rivals' performance if an industry's firms are more commonly owned by the same set of investors. Higher common ownership also leads to higher unconditional total pay. We...

We analyze the optimal contract between a risk-averse manager and the initial shareholders in a two-period model where the manager's investment effort, carried out in period 1, and her current effort, carried out in period 2, both impact the second-period profit, so that it may be difficult to...

This paper identifies globalization as a factor behind the rapid increase in executive compensation and inequality over the last few decades. Employing comprehensive data on top executives at major U.S. companies, we show that compensation is higher at more global firms. We find that pay...

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on executive compensation. We start by presenting data on the level of CEO and other top executive pay over time and across firms, the changing composition of pay; and the strength of executive incentives. We compare pay in U.S. public...

We study the extent of fraud in initial coin offerings (ICOs), and whether information disclosure prior to the issuance predicts fraud. We document different types of fraud, and that fraudulent ICOs are on average much larger than the sample average. Issuers that disclose their code on GitHub...

In this article we use a stochastic model with one representative firm to study business tax policy under default risk. We will show that, for a given tax rate, the government has an incentive to reduce (increase) financial instability and default costs if its objective function is welfare (tax...

An extensive literature has analyzed the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) legislation enacted in 2002, but its social welfare consequences remain controversial. One of the most significant provisions of SOX – auditor attestation of internal controls under Section 404(b) – has been applied only to firms...

In the absence of financial frictions, the purpose of thin capitalization rules is to limit multinational firms’ possibilities of engaging in tax planning via debt shifting. This paper analyzes the effects of thin capitalization rules in the case where firms have limited access to external...

Cryptocurrencies are often thought to operate out of the reach of national regulation, but in fact their valuations, transaction volumes and user bases react substantially to news about regulatory actions. The impact depends on the specific regulatory category to which the news relates: events...