For the past 30 years, the conventional wisdom has been that executive compensation packages should include very large proportions of incentive pay. This incentive pay orthodoxy has become so firmly entrenched that the current debates about executive compensation simply take it as a given. We...

Research suggests that restricted labor mobility discourages managers from investing in human capital and reduces firm value. However, whether firms re-incentivize managers to mitigate its adverse effects remains unexplored. We find that after the adoption of the inevitable disclosure doctrine...

Using data that includes specific contractual details of Relative Performance Evaluation (RPE) contracts granted to executives for 1,833 firms for the period 1998 to 2012, we develop new methods to characterize RPE awards and measure their value and incentive properties. The frequency in the use...

We show in a theoretical model that credit default swaps induce managerial agency problems through two channels: reducing the opportunity for managers to transfer value to equityholders from creditors via strategic default, and reducing the intensity of monitoring by creditors, which leads to...

Basierend auf einem neuen, die deutschen Prime-Standard-Unternehmen für die Jahre 2005 bis 2007 umfassenden Datensatz untersuchen wir die Determinanten der Höhe der Vorstandsvergütung. Dabei unterscheiden wir drei Kategorien möglicher Einflussfaktoren: Unternehmens-, Performance- und...

Convergence in CEO pay occurs when pay differentials narrow over time. We analyze and compare differences in the rate of convergence in CEO pay of Australian listed firms with high shareholding concentration (HSC) and without, for the period 1992 to 2009. We find zero and negative...

We examine whether and to what extent managers are evaluated, in their relative performance contracts, on the basis of systematic performance. Focusing on relative total shareholder returns (rTSR), the predominant metric specified in these contracts and used by market participants to evaluate...

The optimal contracts in portfolio delegation under general preferences are characterized when the underlying state variable is not contractible, and the principal must rely on the final returns of portfolios to design the compensation schemes for the fund manager. We show that the optimal...

This study examines the effect of relative performance evaluation (RPE) on firm performance and risk-taking behavior. Agency theory suggests that RPE use in executive compensation plans improves risk sharing and strengthens incentive alignment when firm performance is exposed to common shocks. I...

We analyze the payout channel choice of listed UK firms and examine whether the choice between dividends, share repurchases, a combination of payout channels, or complete earnings retention is affected by investor sentiment, taxation, major shareholder ownership, and in particular the CEO's...