This paper builds on Rosen (1981) and Hvide (2002) to provide a simple framework that elucidates the nature of incentives in the tournaments among top executives in both the external managerial labor market for the top executive positions in other companies and within the executives' own firm...

Using a comprehensive sample of US banks for years 2001 to 2016, we split the pay gap between the CEO and rank-and-file employees into two: CEO pay gap and VP pay gap. We examine the effect on bank performance of the tournament incentives arising from these different pay gaps. We find that CEO...

IPO firms with high-powered CEO incentive contracts have lower failure rates in the aftermarket. Economically, an interquartile change in the distribution of CEO pay translates in a reduction of the failure risk probability by approximately 21%. The Pay Gap between the CEO and its subordinate...

In empirical corporate finance, firm size is commonly used as an important, fundamental firm characteristic. However, no research comprehensively assesses the sensitivity of empirical results in corporate finance to different measures of firm size. This paper fills this hole by providing...

Using the compensation gap between a CEO and the second-highest-paid CEO in the same Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as a proxy for local tournament incentives, I document a positive relation between local tournament incentives and firm risk. Specifically, CEOs who face higher local...

We model and empirically assess industry tournament incentives for CEOs. The measures we develop for the tournament prize derive from the compensation gap between the CEO at her firm and the highest-paid CEO among similar competing firms. The model predicts that firm performance and risk...

We evaluate the link between CEO industry tournament incentives (ITI) and the product market benefits of corporate liquidity. We find that ITI increase the level and marginal value of cash holdings. Furthermore, ITI strengthen the relation between excess cash and market share gains especially...

This paper considers the effects of the 1993 legislation limiting the deductibility of non-performance-based executive compensation for corporate income tax purposes. We begin by describing the specific provisions of the legislation, and we discuss its possible effects on overall compensation...

Using the pay gap between a firm’s CEO and the highest-paid CEO among similar competing firms to conceptualize the prize of winning external promotion tournaments, we document a positive relationship between external tournament incentives (ETIs) and IPO underpricing – a proxy of the cost of...