Both agency- and non-agency-based interpretations have been proposed to explain the strong positive empirical relationship between corporate cash flow and corporate investment. In this paper, we attempt to distinguish between these different interpretations using project-level data in the oil...

Most corporate finance models of firm behavior study the typical US corporation: one firm with a large set of dispersed shareholders. In contrast, in many countries around the world, firms are often held in groups with complicated ownership structures. These groups, often referred to as...

Who sets CEO pay? Our standard answer to this question has been shaped by principal agent theory: shareholders set CEO pay. They use pay to limit the moral hazard problem caused by the low ownership stakes of CEOs. Through bonuses, options, or long term contracts, shareholders can motivate the...

We empirically examine two competing views of CEO pay. In the contracting view, pay is used to solve an agency problem: the compensation committee optimally chooses pay contracts that give the CEO incentives to maximize shareholder wealth. In the skimming view, pay is the result of an agency...

Who sets CEO pay? Our standard answer to this question has been shaped by principal agent theory: shareholders set CEO pay. They use pay to limit the moral hazard problem caused by the low ownership stakes of CEOs. Through bonuses, options, or long term contracts, shareholders can motivate the...

In many countries, controlling shareholders are accused of tunneling, transferring resources from companies where they have few cash flow rights to ones where they have more cash flow rights. Quantifying the extent of such tunneling, however, has proven difficult because of its illicit nature....

We investigate the impact of changes in states' anti-takeover legislation on executive compensation. We find that both pay for performance sensitivities and mean pay increase for the firms affected by the legislation (relative to a control group). These findings are partially consistent with an...

Numerous laboratory studies report on behaviors inconsistent with rational economic models. How much do these inconsistencies matter in natural settings, when consumers make large, real decisions and have the opportunity to learn from experiences? We report on a field experiment designed to...

Much of our understanding of corporations builds on the idea that managers, when they are not closely monitored, will pursue goals that are not in shareholders' interests. But what goals would managers pursue? This paper uses variation in corporate governance generated by state adoption of...

Building on prior literature that constrained individuals consume the most out of a tax rebate, we study the tradeoffs high interest borrowers face when they received their 2008 tax stimulus checks. We find a persistent decline in payday borrowing in the pay cycles that follow the receipt of the...