This article examines whether the effect of hierarchical pay structures on firm value is different between the firms in which the CEO is not the highest paid member of the top management team and those in which the CEO receives the highest pay. We find that the difference in pay between CEO and...

Previous literature documents a negative relationship between leverage and firm growth. This paper finds that once the incentives provided by stock options are accounted for, leverage does not affect firm growth. The paper also finds that the sensitivity of CEOs’ wealth to stock price (i.e....

This paper assesses the impact of environmental corporate social responsibility (ECSR) on Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) measured by ROA and Tobin's Q. We show that the relationship between firms' return on assets (ROA) and ECSR, strengths and concerns, is negative and statistically...

This paper examines whether asymmetric benchmarking of pay exists for vice presidents (VPs). Using ExecuComp data for 1992–2007, we find that companies reward VPs for good luck but do not penalize them for bad luck. However, asymmetric benchmarking of VP pay is mitigated by governance, CEO...

CEOs and top management team members have incentives to influence their own pay. Asymmetric benchmarking of pay for CEOs has been linked to the CEO's control over the pay-setting process in previous research. This paper examines whether asymmetric benchmarking of pay exists for top management...