In the wake of the global financial crisis, attention has often focused on whether incentives generated by bank executives' compensation programs led to excessive risk-taking. Post-crisis, compensation reform proposals have taken broadly three approaches: long-term deferred equity incentive...

This paper uses FAS 123R regulation to examine how reduction in CEO compensation incentives affects managerial 'playing-it-safe' behavior. Using proxies reflecting deliberate managerial efforts to change firm risk, difference-in-difference tests show that affected firms drastically reduce both...

We find significant positive abnormal returns surrounding a surprising and quick enactment of a law that restricts executive pay to a binding upper limit in a few industries. We find that the effect is concentrated only for firms in which the restriction is binding. We also find that the...

Using a simple symmetric principal-agent model of two banks, this paper studies the effects of both bailouts and bonus taxes on risk taking and managerial compensation. In contrast to existing literature, we assume financial institutions to be systemic only on a collective basis, implying...

We survey directors and investors on the objectives, constraints, and determinants of CEO pay. 67% of directors would sacrifice shareholder value to avoid controversy on CEO pay, implying they face significant constraints other than participation and incentive compatibility. These constraints...

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...

This paper investigates whether observed executive compensation contracts are designed to provide risk-taking incentives in addition to effort incentives. We develop a stylized principal-agent model that captures the interdependence between firm risk and managerial incentives. We calibrate the...

This paper examines the integration of ESG performance metrics into executive compensation using a detailed panel dataset of European executives. Despite becoming more widespread, most ESG metrics are largely discretionary, carry immaterial weights in payout calculations, and contribute little...

We investigate the effect of managerial incentives and market power on bank risk-taking for a sample of 212 large US bank holding companies over 1997-2004 (i.e. 1,534 observations). Bank managers have incentives to prefer less risk while bank shareholders have preference for ‘excessive' risk....

We investigate the effects of managerial incentives and market power on bank risk-taking for a sample of 212 large U.S. bank holding companies over the period 1997-2004 (comprising 1,534 observations). Bank managers have incentives to prefer less risk, while bank shareholders prefer higher risk,...