Pay transparency and the pay dispersion it reveals matter to academics, policymakers, and corporate stakeholders. We study how the increased pay transparency brought about by the United States’ CEO pay ratio disclosure rule affected employee pay satisfaction. Economic models of pay...

Using a sample of more than 1,500 US public firms in the period 1998-2016, we examine how firms endogenously adjust CEO compensation contracts when they become financially distressed. The link between compensation and equity-based measures of firm performance is positive and strong prior to...

This paper estimates the risk premium in CEO incentive compensation. Using detailed U.S. CEO contract compensation data and simulation analysis, we find that CEOs with riskier pay packages are paid more. The estimated risk premium from total incentive pay represents 15% of total pay. We further...