This paper empirically examines the relation between the use of derivatives and the risk level of firms in a sample of 431 large Japanese nonfinancial firms. Previous studies investigating whether firms systematically reduce or increase their risk with derivatives show that firms reduce their...

We examine the press' role in monitoring and influencing executive compensation practice using more than 11,000 press articles about CEO compensation from 1994 to 2002. Negative press coverage is more strongly related to excess annual pay than to raw annual pay, suggesting a sophisticated...

We compare executive equity incentives of firms accused of accounting fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during the period 1996-2003 to two samples of firms not accused of fraud. We measure equity incentives in a variety of ways and employ a battery of empirical tests. We find...

Employee stock options have become a large component of compensation for many companies, especially those in which human capital forms a large portion of company assets. In this monograph, I address how to value the equity of companies that grant employee options. I discuss prior research on...

We analyze a sample of firms accused of fraudulently overstating their earnings and examine the extent, if any, to which they paid additional income taxes on the allegedly fraudulent earnings. Based on restatements of current tax expense adjusted for the tax benefits of stock options, the...

We use the Ohlson (1995, 1999) and Feltham-Ohlson (1999) valuation models to compare the extent to which Accounting Principles Board Opinion 25: Accounting for Stock Issued to Employees (APB 25), Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 123: Accounting for Stock-Based Compensation (SFAS...

Stock and option compensation and the level of managerial equity incentives are aspects of corporate governance that are especially controversial to shareholders, institutional activists, and governmental regulators. Similar to much of the corporate finance and corporate governance literature,...

We empirically examine standard agency predictions about how performance measures are optimally weighted to provide CEO incentives. Consistent with prior empirical research, we document that the relative weight on price and non-price performance measures in CEO cash pay is a decreasing function...

We investigate whether risk-related incentives of executive stock option (ESO) compensation plans are associated with income smoothing. Given that risk has both potential benefits and costs, including possible losses and/or large fluctuations that affect reported financial outcomes,...