While the traditional agency model assumes managerial risk aversion and under-investment in high tech opportunities, the behavioural agency model allows for risk seeking by managers leading possibly to over-risky investments. Corporate governance mechanisms can correct both under- and over-risky...

This paper studies how hedge fund activism reshapes board monitoring, CEO incentives and compensation. I find that activists target CEOs who have co-opted the board, have poor performance records and weak equity portfolio incentives, are less subject to relative performance evaluation (RPE) but...

This study examines whether and how CEO equity incentives relate to financing choices (i.e., debt and leases). Using manually collected CEO compensation and lease data for a sample of large UK firms, we found evidence of a negative relationship between CEO equity incentives and firm leverage. We...

Using the mandatory adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), we examine whether an exogenously imposed disclosure reform that increases the amount of information affects the level of executive compensation. Extant theories suggest that disclosure reforms could either raise...

We examine the effect of board members with venture capital experience (i.e., VC directors) on executive incentives at non-VC-backed public firms. VC directors serving on the compensation committee are associated with greater CEO risk-taking incentives (i.e., vega) and pay-for-performance...

We examine the effect of board members with venture capital experience (i.e., VC directors) on executive incentives at publicly listed firms. VC directors serving on the compensation committee are associated with greater CEO risk-taking incentives (i.e., vega) and greater pay-for-performance...

We investigate the key contractual features of CEO performance-vested (p-v) equity compensation. We hypothesize that contractual features such as relative performance evaluation (RPE), the performance period length, and the number of performance metrics can be configured to improve the...

Using a sample of about 90,000 observations from 38 countries over the 2001-2012 period, we provide three novel findings regarding say on pay (SoP) laws. First, we find robust evidence that SoP laws reduce CEO pay growth rates at firms. Second, such laws decrease the portion of total top...

Executive equity compensation is granted out of an equity incentive plan that must be approved by shareholders. Equity incentive plans are an important precursor to equity grants because plan terms give boards of directors discretion over the amount and features of equity that can be granted...

Contrary to previous literature we hypothesize that labor's interest may well – like that of shareholders – aim at securing the long-run survival of the firm. Consequently, employee representatives on the supervisory board could well have an interest in increasing incentive-based...