This paper develops an account of the role and significance of managerial power and rent extraction in executive compensation. Under the optimal contracting approach to executive compensation, which has dominated academic re-search on the subject, pay arrangements are set by a board of directors...

Investor-driven "short-termism" is said to harm EU public firms' ability to invest for the long term, prompting calls for the EU to better insulate managers from shareholder pressure. But the evidence offered---rising levels of repurchases and dividends---is incomplete and misleading: it ignores...