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We examine the relationship between wages and skill requirements in a sample of over 50,000 managers in 39 companies between 1986 and 1992. The data include an unusually good measure of job requirements and skills that can proxy for human capital. We find that wage inequality increased both...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471020
This paper analyzes certain important shortcomings of state competition in corporate law. In particular, we show, with respect to takeovers, states have incentives to produce rules that excessively protect incumbent managers. The development of state takeover law, we argue, is consistent with...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471028
This paper assesses different organizational forms in terms of their ability to generate information about investment projects and allocate capital to these projects efficiently. A decentralized approach with small, single-manager firms is most likely to be attractive when information about...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471056
The agents to whom shareholders delegate the management of corporate affairs may transfer value from shareholders to themselves through a variety of mechanisms, such as self-dealing, insider trading, and taking of corporate opportunities. A common view in the law and economics literature is that...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471137
This paper attempts to help explain the unforecasted, excess' personal income tax revenues of the last several years. Using panel data on executive compensation in the 1990s, it argues that because the gains on most stock options are treated as ordinary income for tax purposes, rising stock...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471145
We empirically examine two competing views of CEO pay. In the contracting view, pay is used to solve an agency problem: the compensation committee optimally chooses pay contracts which give the CEO incentives to maximize shareholder wealth. In the skimming view, pay is the result of an agency...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471166
Over the past 20 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the share of executive compensation paid through stock options. In this paper, we examine the extent to which tax policy has influenced the composition of executive compensation, and discuss the implications of rising stock-based pay...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471173
Although exercise prices for executive stock options can be set either below or above the grant-date market price, in practice virtually all options are granted at the money. We offer an economic rationale for this apparent puzzle, by showing that pay-to-performance incentives for risk-averse...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471227
Both managerial ownership and performance are endogenously determined by exogenous (and only partly observed) changes in the firm's contracting environment. We extend the cross-sectional results of Demsetz and Lehn (1985) and use panel data to show that managerial ownership is explained by key...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471259
The folk wisdom is that competition reduces agency costs. We provide indirect empirical support for this view. We argue that the temptation to retain cash and engage in less productive activities is more severe for firms in less competitive industries. Hence an unanticipated increase in...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012471296