We recently experienced a global financial crisis so severe that only massive rescue operations by governments around the world prevented a total financial market meltdown and perhaps another global Great Depression. One necessary precondition for the crisis was the perverse, bonus-driven...

The financial crisis of 2008 has many causes, with the role of executive compensation in creating excessive risk taking being frequently cited in the press and by policy makers as a leading candidate. The evidence for or against is scarce. This paper assembles panel data on 117 financial firms...

Analysis of UK financial sector bonus schemes in the years immediately prior to the financial crisis of 2008/09 reveals significant changes in their structure and complexity. In terms of the determinants of levels of bonus award, leverage as a measure of risk exposure is not significant, whilst...