We examine the incentive effects of private equity (PE) professionals' ownership in the funds they manage. In a simple model, we show that managers select less risky firms and use more debt financing the higher their ownership. We test these predictions for a sample of PE funds in Norway, where...

This paper examines the dynamic relationship between firm leverage and risktaking. We embed the traditional agency problem of asset substitution within a multi-period model, revealing a U-shaped relationship between leverage and risktaking, evident in data from both the U.S. and Europe. Firms...

We are able to shed light on the black box of restructuring tools private equity investors use to improve the operational performance of their portfolio companies. By building on previous work considering performance evaluation of PE backed companies, we analyze whether private equity improves...

This study investigates the transition from being a listed company with a dispersed ownership structure to being a privately held company with a concentrated ownership structure. We consider a sample of private equity backed portfolio companies to evaluate the consequences of the corporate...

We develop a model of managerial compensation structure and asset risk choice. The model provides predictions about the relation between credit spreads and different compensation components. First, we show that credit spreads are decreasing in inside debt only if it is unsecured. Second, the...

We study how US chief executive officers (CEOs) invest their deferred compensation plans depending on the firm's profitability. By looking at the correlation between the CEO's return on these plans and the firm's stock return, we show that deferred compensation is to a large extent invested in...

We are able to shed light on the black box of restructuring tools private equity investors use to improve the operational performance of their portfolio companies. By building on previous work considering performance evaluation of PE backed companies, we analyze whether private equity improves...

We develop a model of managerial compensation structure and asset risk choice. The model provides predictions about how inside debt features affect the relation between credit spreads and compensation components. First, inside debt reduces credit spreads only if it is unsecured. Second, inside...

In this paper we provide new evidence that corporate financing decisions are associated with managerial incentives to report high equity earnings. Managers rely most heavily on debt to finance their asset growth when their future earnings prospects are poor, when they are under pressure due to...

We offer evidence of a new stylized feature of corporate financing decisions: the tendency of managers to rely more on debt financing when earnings prospects are poor. We term this 'leaning against the wind' and consider three possible explanations: market timing, precautionary financing, and...