Stock Option Programs (SOPs) have become the dominant compensation instrument for top-management in the nineties. Usually, they are not dividend protected, i.e. any dividend payout decreases the value of a manager's options. Empirical evidence shows that this results in a significant decrease in...

This paper analyzes theoretically the effect of stock and stock options on the investment behavior of managers. Recent theoretical results state that stock options are an inefficient means of motivating managerial effort. But if the manager holds restricted stock and is allowed to invest his...

Executive Stock Option Programs (SOPs) have become the dominantcompensation instrument for top-management in recent years. Theincentive effects of an SOP both with respect to corporateinvestment and financing decisions critically depend on the design of the SOP. A specific problem in designing...

Stock-option programs (SOPs) became the dominant compensation instrument for top management in the nineties. Usually, they are not dividend-protected, i.e., any dividend payout decreases the value of a manager's options. Empirical evidence shows that this results in a significant decrease in the...