This paper studies the valuation and risk management of callable, defaultable bonds when both interest rates and firm value are stochastic and when the issuer follows optimal call and default policies. Since interest rate sensitivity is low when call is imminent and firm value sensitivity is...

The evaluation and compensation of portfolio managers is an important problem for practitioners. Optimal compensation will induce managers to expend effort to generate information and to use it appropriately in an informed portfolio choice. Our general model points the way towards analysis of...

The literature traditionally assumes that a portfolio manager who expends costly effort to generate information makes an unrestricted portfolio choice and is paid according to a sharing rule. However, the revelation principle provides a more efficient institution. If credible communication of...

This paper solves the dynamic investment problem of a risk averse manager compensated with a call option on the assets he controls. Under the manager's optimal policy, the option ends up either deep in or deep out of money. As the asset value goes to zero, volatility goes to infinity. However,...

We use martingale methods to solve the investment problem of a risk averse fund manager who charges an incentive fee which he cannot hedge in his personal account. An incentive fee is a share in the positive part of the returns on the client s portfolio net of some benchmark return. The optimal...

Much has been made of the potential for hedging restrictions to reduce the value of executive stock options. We investigate this issue by comparing a rational utility-maximizing model that incorporates both hedging restrictions and an endogenous departure decision and a naiuml;ve...

We generate samples of fund returns calibrated to match the U.S. mutual fund industry and simulate standard tests of performance persistence. We consider a variety of alternative return generating processes, survival criteria, and test methodologies. When survival depends on performance over...

The evaluation and compensation of portfolio managers is an important problem for practitioners. Optimal compensation will induce managers to expend effort to generate information and to use it appropriately in an informed portfolio choice. Our general model points the way towards analysis of...

This paper examines whether corporate insiders use private information to time the exercises of their executive stock options. Prior to May 1991, insiders had to hold the stock they acquired through option exercise for six months. We find that exercises from this regulatory regime precede...

In theory, hedging restrictions faced by managers make executive stock options more difficult to value than ordinary options, because they imply that exercise policies of managers depend on their preferences and endowments. Using data on option exercises from 40 firms, this paper shows that a...