This article presents a systematic review of the theoretical and empirical literature on option grants and managerial risk taking. One of the objectives is the motivation of further research on the topic. Risk-averse managers hold less diversified portfolios and, thus, tend to take less risk...

Equity pay has been the primary component of managerial compensation packages at US public firms since the early 1990s. Using a comprehensive sample of top executives from 1992-2020, we estimate to what extent they trade firm equity held in their portfolios to neutralize increments in ownership...

This paper finds that CEO stock options influence the choice, amount, and timing of funds distributed as a buyback. These results favor a managerial opportunism motive for buybacks over other theories and support two key research expectations - that buybacks impose option-induced agency costs on...

Classic financial agency theory recommends compensation through stock options rather than shares to induce risk neutrality in otherwise risk averse agents. In an experiment, we find that subjects acting as executives do also take risks that are excessive from the perspective of shareholders if...

This paper determines the cost of employee stock options (ESOs) to shareholders. I present a pricing method that seeks to replicate the empirics of exercise and cancellation as good as possible. In a first step, an intensity-based pricing model of El Karoui and Martellini is adapted to the needs...

This study contributes to the valuation of employee stock options (ESO) in two ways: First, a new pricing model is presented, admitting a major part of calculations to be solved in closed form. Designed with a focus on good replication of empirics, the model fits with publicly observable...

This paper analyzes which stock option scheme best aligns the interests of a firm's manager and shareholders when both are risk-averse. We consider granting to the manager a basic fixed salary and one of the following four options: European, Parisian, Asian and American options. Choosing the...

We develop a continuous-time structural model to characterize the manager-shareholder conflict over the choice of dynamic investment when the manager is compensated with cash salary, stock and option. We then focus on investigating the dissimilar impact of stock and option compensations on the...

Most firms face some form of competition in product markets. The degree of competition a firm faces feeds back into its cash flows and affects the values of the securities it issues. Through its effects on stock prices, product market competition affects the prices of options on equity and...