A manager's current and potential future employers are continually assessing her or his ability. Such assessment is a crucial component of corporate governance and this chapter provides an overview of the research on that aspect of governance. In particular, we review how assessment generates...

While executive compensation is often blamed for the excessive risk taking by banks, little is known about the operating performance incentives used in the finance industry both prior to and subsequent to the recent crisis. We provide a comprehensive analysis of incentive design -- the link of...

A manager's shareholders, board of directors, and potential future employers are continually assessing his ability. A rich literature has documented that this insight has profound implications for corporate governance because assessment generates incentives (good and bad), introduces assorted...

A manager's current and potential future employers are continually assessing her or his ability. Such assessment is a crucial component of corporate governance and this chapter provides an overview of the research on that aspect of governance. In particular, we review how assessment generates...

Can algorithms assist firms in their decisions on nominating corporate directors? Directors predicted to do poorly by algorithms indeed do poorly compared to a realistic pool of candidates in out-of-sample tests. Predictably bad directors are more likely to be male, accumulate more...

Can an algorithm assist firms in their hiring decisions of corporate directors? This paper proposes a method of selecting boards of directors that relies on machine learning. We develop algorithms with the goal of selecting directors that would be preferred by the shareholders of a particular...

This essay reviews Bebchuk and Fried's Pay without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation. Bebchuk and Fried criticize the standard view of executive compensation, in which executives negotiate contracts with shareholders that provide incentives that motivate them to...

Lifetime incomes of private equity general partners are affected by their current funds' performance through both carried interest profit sharing provisions, and also by the effect of the current fund's performance on general partners' abilities to raise capital for future funds. We present a...

Uncertainty about management appears to affect firms' cost of borrowing and financial policies. In a sample of S&P 1500 firms between 1987 and 2010, CDS spreads, loan spreads and bond yield spreads all decline over the first three years of CEO tenure, holding other macroeconomic, firm, and...