The paper examines the determinants and performance consequences of equity grants to senior-level executives, lower-level managers, and non-exempt employees of "new economy" firms. We find that many of the equity grant determinants and their relative importance vary significantly between new and...

The paper examines the determinants and performance consequences of equity grants to senior-level executives, lower-level managers, and non-exempt employees of "new economy" firms. We find that the determinants of equity grants are significantly different in new versus old economy firms. We also...

We analyze CEO pay and equity holdings for the S&P 1,500 and broad industry classes. Between 1994 and 2000 real annual compensation doubled, and there was a dramatic shift from salary to option grants. The value and proportion of CEO equity holdings and the price-performance-sensitivity of their...

The credit crisis of 2008 placed compensation practices at publicly traded firms in the United States under scrutiny. This case examines perceived excessive pay and severance packages at several firms implicated in the credit crisis of 2008, the executive compensation provisions in the Emergency...

We investigate the determinants of firms' implicit insurance to employees, using a difference-indifference approach: we rely on differences between family and non-family firms to identify the supply of insurance, and exploit variation in unemployment insurance across and within countries to...

Using a novel dataset, we show that components of firms' GAAP earnings stemming from ancillary business activities or transitory shocks are significant in frequency and magnitude. These components have grown over time and are dispersed across various sections of the 10-K. Excluding them from...

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect that Research and Development (R&D) expenditures have on a company’s market value and earnings. Prior literature shows that R&D expenses have a positive impact on a firm’s market performance, as well as a positive impact on a firm’s earnings....

We test the hypothesis that less transparency in financial disclosures is an undesirable firm attribute that increases the amount of information and unemployment risk that employees bear, resulting in a wage premium. Using establishment-level wage data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we document...

This study investigates the impact of professor-directors on the executive-employee pay gap in public Chinese firms. University professors are generally believed to have higher standards of ethical and social responsibility by the public. Consistent with this view, we find there is a negative...

Using a sample of firms that disclose the realizations of earnings used for determining covenant compliance in loan contracts, we provide direct evidence on the informational properties of earnings used in the performance covenants included in debt contracts. We find that the earnings measure...