We find that social capital, as captured by secular norms and networks surrounding corporate headquarters, is negatively associated with total and equity-based CEO compensation. This relation is robust in tests for omitted variables, in instrumental-variable regressions, and in regressions using...

We study the pay of UK universities chief executives ("vice-chancellors") over a ten year period. Although there is a correlation between pay and performance, with better performing institutions paying higher salaries, we find limited evidence that this relationship is causal; that is, we find...

Provides in-depth analysis of excessive executive compensation at the 20 wealthiest Massachusetts private colleges and universities during 2008-09, the academic year of the financial crisis. Analyzes both disclosed and undisclosed compensation packages as well as income inequality between highly...

I broadly explore the question by examining several common criticisms of CEO pay through both philosophical and empirical lenses. While some criticisms appear to be unfounded, the analysis shows not only that current compensation practices are problematic both from the standpoint of distributive...

In analyzing the ethics of executive compensation, this paper examines the issue from the standpoint of three prominent theories of distributive justice. Applying each of these "ideal" theories to the question of how to structure CEO pay illustrates a variety of different objections and...

Boards of directors are intellectually interesting; the literature on boards has academic impact, and there is substantial scope for this literature to have policy impact. I illustrate these points by combining a select review of the literature with evidence from a variety of data sets. Boards...

In this paper we integrate the literature on decision quality with considerations specific to boards of directors. In order to maximize the value of their decisions, boards of directors must look beyond their legal obligations and incorporate business ethics and the latest developments in...

This paper examines the effectiveness of leaders in addressing coordination failure in societies with ethnic or religious diversity. We experimentally vary leader identity in a coordination game and implement it in the field across 44 towns in India. We find that religious minority leaders...

We propose a new channel through which teamwork improves mutual fund activity: by offsetting individual manager overconfidence, teams mitigate excessive performance-induced trading (PIT). The predictions of our theoretical model are confirmed in the data. Team-managed funds trade less after good...