We study the effects of stock price informativeness (SPI) on the complexity of executive compensation. Using textual analysis of SEC proxy statements to construct measures of compensation complexity, we find informative stock prices reduce pay complexity. Using mutual fund redemption as an...

We study the motive of using equity-based pay in executive compensation: the risk-sharing motive versus the performance-measuring motive. The empirical design goes through the relationship between equity-based pay and stock price informativeness (SPI). We find equity-based pay decreases in SPI,...

We examine how accounting-based compensation plans influence a firm's contracts with its creditors. After granting long-term accounting-based compensation plans (LTAPs) to CEOs, firms pay lower spreads and have fewer restrictive covenants in new bank loans. Mechanisms leading to lower borrowing...

Panel OLS and GMM-IV estimates indicate that executives respond to the adoption of a compensation clawback provision by decreasing firm risk. The mechanisms that transmit incentives to decisions and decisions to risk appear to be more conservative investment and financial policies and preemptive...

We provide evidence that CEO equity incentives, especially stock options, influence stock liquidity risk via information disclosure quality. We document a negative association between CEO options and the quality of future managerial disclosure policy. Contributing to the literature on CEO...

Influenced by their compensation plans, CEOs make their own luck through decisions that affect future firm risk. After adopting a relative performance evaluation (RPE) plan, total and idiosyncratic risk are higher, and the correlation between firm and industry performance is lower. The opposite...

We study how ownership structure, in particular public listing status, relates to workplace safety and productivity tradeoffs. Theory offers competing hypotheses on how listing-related frictions affect these tradeoffs. We exploit detailed asset-level data in the U.S. coal industry and find that...

Corporate cash holdings impact firms' product pricing strategies. Exploiting the Aviation Investment and Reform Act of the 21st Century as a quasi-natural experiment to identify exogenous shocks to competition in the airline industry, I find that firms with more cash than their rivals respond to...

Product price risk is a potentially important factor for firms' liquidity management. A natural place to evaluate the impact of this risk on liquidity management is the electricity industry, since producing firms face substantial price volatility in wholesale markets. Empirically, higher...

I study the empirical importance of debt overhang using a unique dataset on resource extraction firms, which provides ex ante measures of investment opportunities and important variation in the terms of a firm's obligations. In particular, unsecured reclamation liabilities create overhang that...