We examine how developing an individual reputation for excellence affects a director's career outcomes in the labor market for boardroom talent. Using unique data on prestigious director awards, we find that individuals who experience very positive reputational shocks are typically rewarded with...

This paper investigates the impact of corporate acquisitions on CEO compensation and CEO turnover of family firms in Continental Europe. We find that CEOs in family firms do not experience an increase in their compensation during the post-acquisition period, while there is a positive and...

For the past 30 years, the conventional wisdom has been that executive compensation packages should include very large proportions of incentive pay. This incentive pay orthodoxy has become so firmly entrenched that the current debates about executive compensation simply take it as a given. We...

Using hand-collected data on CEO non-compete agreements (NCAs), we find that CEOs are less likely to have NCAs when they face greater employment risk and more likely when firms expect to suffer greater harm if departing CEOs work with competitors in some capacity. Additionally, we find that the...

Adverse selection harms workers, but benefits firms able to identify talent. An informed intermediary expropriates its agents' ability by threatening to fire and expose them to undervaluation of their skill. Agents' track record gradually reduces the intermediary's information advantage. We show...

A significant portion of CEOs in publicly-listed Chinese state-owned enterprises receive zero pay from the companies for which they work. Instead, they are paid directly by their controlling shareholder who can be the Chinese government or parent firms controlled by the Chinese government. While...