Insurance is a key risk sharing mechanism that protects citizens and governments from the losses caused by natural catastrophes. Given the increase in the frequency and intensity of natural catastrophes over recent years, this paper analyzes the performance effects of mega-catastrophes for U.S....

We investigate the link between the incentive mechanisms embedded in CEO cash bonuses and the riskiness of banks. For a sample of U.S. and European banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that increases in CEO cash bonuses lower the default risk of a bank. However, we find...

We analyze the impact of incentive mechanisms embedded in executive remuneration contracts on the risk choices made by bank CEOs. For a panel of US and European banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to estimate how bonus payments and option holdings impact the level of bank...