Incentive compensation is a central concern in the relationship between the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and the board of directors and between the CEO and shareholders. This book presents a focus on four key themes that are salient to the current debate on the consequences and determinants of...

A substantial number of empirical studies on the linear relationship between executive compensation and firm performance for European firms suggest that the pay-performance sensitivity is not significantly positive. We argue that a nonlinear structure fits the data better, because compensation...

Incentive effects of performance-based compensation schemes for management may be weakened or biased by macroeconomic influences on remuneration. These influences can be seen as reflecting luck from the CEO's perspective. In this chapter we present a model for how to avoid compensating CEO for...

This paper investigates whether observed executive compensation contracts are designed to provide risk-taking incentives in addition to effort incentives. We develop a stylized principal-agent model that captures the interdependence between firm risk and managerial incentives. We calibrate the...

Classic financial agency theory recommends compensation through stock options rather than shares to induce risk neutrality in otherwise risk averse agents. In an experiment, we find that subjects acting as executives do also take risks that are excessive from the perspective of shareholders if...

As it is widely believed that the behaviour of large Japanese companies is different from that of their British counterparts, hypothesises that the directors in both countries may have different financial incentives. The research estimates the determinants of executive compensation, using the...