In May 1997, the Japanese Commercial Code was amended to allow firms to begin granting stock options as compensation to top management and employees. Nearly 350 firms adopted option-based compensation plans between 1997 and 2001. These options typically have five year lives and are...

Structural models of capital structure frequently have similar implications for the data that we observe, yet are typically not tested against alternative specifications. We examine the predictions of structural models, and develop a formal methodology for testing amongst alternatives. We show...

We find that the demand for stock options that increases exposure to the underlying is positively related to the individual investor sentiments and past market returns, whereas the demand for index options is invariant to these factors. These differences in trading patterns are also reflected in...

Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that managers' career concerns can serve as an important source of implicit economic incentives. We examine how incentives for political promotion are related to compensation policy and firm performance in Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs). We find...