We document that firms whose compensation peers experience weak say on pay votes reduce CEO compensation following those votes. Reductions reflect proxy adviser concerns about peers' compensation contracts and are stronger when CEOs receive excess compensation, when they compete more closely...

Using hand-collected data on CEO appointments during shareholder activism campaigns, this study examines whether shareholder involvement in CEO recruiting affects frictions in CEO hiring decisions. The results indicate that appointments of CEOs who are recruited with shareholder activist...

Clawbacks are contractual provisions in executive compensation contracts that allow for an ex post recoupment of variable pay if certain triggering conditions are met. As a result of regulatory responses to financial crises and corporate scandals as well as of growing shareholder pressure to...

Exploiting the setting of staggered adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (hereafter IDD) in U.S. state courts, we examine how quasi-exogenous restrictions of outside employment opportunities affect CEOs' risk preferences. IDD adoption constrains executives' ability to work for...

Coordination problems amongst creditors are reduced when a firm's debt structure is concentrated in fewer debt types. Using a sample of US non-financial firms, we show that an increase in risk-taking incentives in CEO pay is associated with a greater debt concentration by debt type. This result...

We examine how incentive compensation for nonfamily executives in family firms differs from incentive compensation for executives in nonfamily firms. Nonfamily executives in family firms receive significantly less performance-based pay and equity-based pay. Family monitoring, risk aversion, and...