This paper examines why powerful CEOs are paid more in total compensation. Broadly, our results are consistent with the managerial ability view. First, CEO power is endogenously determined reflecting the CEO's ability. Specifically, founder-CEOs are more powerful than professional- and heir-CEOs...

Efficient contracting predicts that ex-ante severance pay contracts are offered to CEOs as protection against downside risk and to encourage investment in risky positive net-present-value projects. Consistent with this prediction, we find that ex-ante contracted severance pay is positively...

A bill currently pending in Congress would render unenforceable mandatory arbitration clauses in all employment contracts. Some perceive these provisions as employer efforts to deprive employees of important legal rights. Company CEOs are firm employees, and, unlike most other firm employees,...

We study the role of explicit and implicit incentives in a competitive labor market with no internal promotion opportunities. We find that explicit incentives explain only a small fraction of the total incentives, as the likelihood of new employment and renegotiation of current employment on...

CEO contractual protection, in forms of CEO employment agreements and CEO severance pay agreements, is prevalent among S&P 1500 firms. While prior research has examined the impact of these agreements on corporate decisions from shareholders’ perspective, there is little research on the impact...

Although the managerial function arises out of organizational needs imposed by market competition and technological development, managers' professional status has come in large part from legal conceptions that perceive the managerially run firm as an institutional bulwark for modern democracy....

Performance contracts (PCs) -- contracts signed between the government and state enterprise managers -- have been used widely in developing countries. China's expertise with such contracts was one of the largest experiments with contracting in the public sector, affecting hundreds of thousands...