[...]In this paper, we study the strength of incentive featuresin banks’ top-management compensation contracts. Weexamine the properties of bank-management compensationstructures, including pay-performance sensitivity, using datafrom 1992 to 2000. Based on existing theory, we hypothesizethat...

This paper shows that illiquid growth opportunities crucially impact the agency costs of risky debt. If the value of these growth opportunities is sufficiently high, they reverse riskshifting incentives into risk-avoidance incentives, creating a new agency cost of debt.(...)