Prior research has documented a "kink" in the earnings distribution: too few firms report small losses, too many firms report small profits. We investigate whether boosting of discretionary accruals to report a small profit is a reasonable explanation for this "kink". Overall, we are unable to...

Among the controversies in corporate governance, perhaps none is more heated or widely debated across society than that of CEO pay. The views that American citizens have on CEO pay is centrally important because public opinion influences political decisions that shape tax, economic, and...

In recent years, companies have begun to voluntarily disclose alternative measures of CEO compensation. These figures differ — sometimes significantly — from those reported in the summary compensation tables of the annual proxy. The motivation to report this information, however, is not...

The litmus test for an effective compensation program is whether it provides “pay for performance.” While the concept of pay for performance is simple, its implementation is not. In particular, boards must consider not only whether a compensation plan encourages executives to pursue...

Understanding CEO compensation plans is a continuing challenge for directors and investors. The disclosure of these plans is dictated by SEC rules that rely heavily on the “fair value” of awards at the time they are granted. The problem with these numbers is that they are static and do not...

CEO compensation is a highly controversial subject. While most company directors believe that CEO pay is not a problem, the majority of the American public believes that it is. The difficulties that boards face in justifying CEO pay levels in some ways stem from the challenge of quantifying how...

We examine whether board and ownership structure variables explain the level of chief executive officer (CEO) compensation. After controlling for standard economic determinants (i.e., the firm's demand for a high-quality CEO, firm performance, and risk), we find that board and ownership...