This is an English translation with new additions from the German book contribution “Krisensichere Leistungsmessung und Bonuspläne” in “Turnaround - Navigation in stürmischen Zeiten: Maßnahmen zur Krisenbewältigung und Auswirkungen auf die Rollen von CFOs und Controllern” by the...

Some theoretical literature on firm-specific human capital investment suggests that severance contracts generate strong incentives for CEOs to ensure firm profitability, while the agency problem theory argues severance agreements are a less effective executive compensation measure. Using a...

In December 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules that require the disclosure of the use of relative performance evaluation (RPE) in CEO compensation contracts. We find that about a third of the sample firms use RPE in the CEO compensation contract. On average, RPE users...

Chhaochharia and Grinstein (JF, 2009) estimate that CEO pay decreases by 17% more in firms that were not compliant with the recent NYSE/NASDAQ board independence requirement than in firms that were compliant. We document that 74% of this magnitude is attributable to two outliers out of 865...

We examine the implications of regulatory intervention in pay-setting, by studying whether executive compensation restrictions associated with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) influence banks' participation in the program. We find that banks more likely to be impacted by the restrictions...

In December 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued new rules that require enhanced disclosure on how firms tie CEO compensation to performance. We use this new available data to study the terms of performance-based awards in CEO compensation contracts in S&P 500 firms. We observe...

We examine whether greater transparency leads to improved evaluation and rewarding of management. We posit that disclosure improves board effectiveness at monitoring executives and in strengthening the link between pay and performance. We use management guidance as our empirical proxy for...

We study the impact of accelerated vesting of equity awards on takeovers, whereby the restricted stock and/or stock options of the target CEO immediately vest and become unrestricted upon the close of the acquisition. We find that takeover premiums are significantly larger when the target CEO...

I review evidence produced by prior literature on CEO horizon problems and show that prior empirical findings are correlated with the research design employed. I find that evidence of R&D curtailment by CEOs as they approach retirement stems predominantly from cross-sectional correlations...

This paper examines the executive compensation schemes of firms whose employees invest in company stocks in the defined contribution (DC) pension plan. In sum, I find that during the period 1992 to 2007, firms with higher employee ownership in the DC plan are more likely to reduce the level and...