Intangible capital can be used to create new goods and services (product intangibles) or to improve the efficiency of the firm (process intangibles). We reveal and study a new empirical fact: Executive and skilled labor pay is increasing in firm process intensity (the fraction of intangibles...

This paper comprehensively explores the compelling framework encompassing Opportunity Econophysics, Opportunity Cones, Conscious Agents, and the Traces of the Conscious Dimension within the context of economic systems. The interdisciplinary nature of this framework integrates concepts from...

Investments in Ramp;D can influence a firm's ability to develop new products and to create and adopt innovative technologies that may enhance productivity. However, due to uncertainty regarding the outcome, investments in Ramp;D may lead to an agency problem between the owners and the managers...

This study analyzes how promotion-based tournament incentives for non-CEO senior executives affect corporate innovation. We measure tournament incentives using the pay gap between a CEO and the next layer of senior executives. We find that tournament incentives are positively related to...

Using the compensation gap between a CEO and the second-highest-paid CEO in the same Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as a proxy for local tournament incentives, I document a positive relation between local tournament incentives and firm risk. Specifically, CEOs who face higher local...

Using CEO severance contracts during 1992-2010, we find that CEOs with a severance contract tend to reduce corporate investments, impede innovation, and decrease firm risk across several dimensions, leading to shareholder value destruction. This negative value effect is stronger during the...

This Article reports results of an empirical study that suggests that the current economic crisis has changed managerial behavior in the US in a way that may impede economic recovery. The study finds a strong, statistically significant and economically meaningful, positive correlation between...

IPO firms with high-powered CEO incentive contracts have lower failure rates in the aftermarket. Economically, an interquartile change in the distribution of CEO pay translates in a reduction of the failure risk probability by approximately 21%. The Pay Gap between the CEO and its subordinate...

This monograph presents existing and new research on three approaches to multiagent incentives: simpler mechanisms, robust mechanisms, and implicit contracts. The goal of all three approaches is to find theories that better explain observed institutions than the standard approach has

This paper tests the proposition that higher tournament incentives will result in greater risk taking by senior managers in order to increase their chance of promotion to the rank of CEO. Measuring tournament incentives as the pay gap between the CEO and the next layer of senior managers, we...