In three self-contained essays, this dissertation deals with the impact of board structure on firm performance and with determinants of executive compensation, director compensation, and payout policy. Each of the three chapters is based on panel data sets of German firms. Distinguishing...

This paper studies the impact of external reference values on managerial compensation contracts. We consider the effect of adoption of non-binding pay nfirms on actal remuneration behavior using a unique country example. We find that introduction of pay nfirms changed the reference values for...

This commentary, a contribution to the Harvard Business Review Online Forum on the CEO's role in fixing the capitalist system, makes the argument that for an incentive system to usefully support a firm's long-term, society focused agenda, companies need to lessen their reliance on financial...

Shareholder and public dissatisfaction with executive compensation has led to calls for an annual shareholder advisory vote on a firm's compensation pratices and policies, so-called "say on pay." Proposed federal legislation would mandate "say on pay" generally for US public companies. This...

This paper reports the prevalence of a “one-size-fits-all” trend in the structure of executive compensation plans. The way firms distribute total compensation across different components of pay –salary, bonus, stock awards, option awards, non-equity incentives, pensions, and perquisites–...

This article sets out the case for repealing the $1 million tax cap on executive pay. The cap is easily avoided and, when not avoided, widely ignored. Since enactment in 1993, the cap has had little effect in reducing executive pay or in linking pay to performance. Even worse, the cap increases...

For more than a decade, to reduce the agency problem, various ways have been examined on how to align the interest of manager with shareholders. However, evidence and empirical findings are conflicting on the agency problem. Recently, deferred compensation as one of incentive compensations draws...

There is growing public concern over the rapid growth in CEO pay relative to average worker pay (CEO pay ratio). Critics contend that high CEO pay ratios could destroy firm value by damaging employee morale and/or signal CEO rent extraction. In this paper, we use a proprietary dataset to examine...

Purpose: This study examines the determinants of the increase in firms' reporting of alternative pay measures in Pay for Performance disclosures and their role in subsequent Say on Pay approval. Design/methodology/approach: This study explores the most common types of supplemental compensation...

Usual measures of the risk-taking incentives of bank CEOs do not capture the risk-shifting incentives that the exposure of a CEO's wealth to his firm's stock price (delta) creates in highly levered firms. We find evidence consistent with the importance of these incentives for bank CEOs: In a...