We investigate how boards use discretion in contracting to incorporate private information about managerial performance. Building from the literature documenting that loss firms' publicly available valuation allowance (VA) disclosures contain value-relevant private information, we show the VA...

As firms evolve, the tasks required to generate firm value change, as does the ability of earnings to reflect changes in that value. To the extent earnings differentially captures managers’ effort toward desire tasks, contracting theory suggests its role in incentive pay should also change....

We examine the relation between managerial incentives and disclosure. Specifically, we examine how contracts that explicitly evaluate managers relative to peer performance are associated with: (1) the transparency of mandatory disclosure; (2) the provision of voluntary disclosure; and (3) the...

Academic and anecdotal evidence has consistently shown that incentive systems often provide short-term payouts without regard for long-term risk. To prevent managers from exploiting the potential horizon mismatch between outcomes of performance and risk taking, the owners of the firm must be...