Baker (2002) has demonstrated theoretically that the quality of performance measures used in compensation contracts hinges on two characteristics: noise and distortion. These criteria, though, will only be useful in practice as long as the noise and distortion of a performance measure can be...

This paper focuses on the effect of relative performance evaluation (RPE) on top managers’ compensation in Chinese public firms. Overall, we find no evidence of an RPE effect or any asymmetry in firms’ use of RPE. The results obtained using Albuquerque’s (2009) method are similar to those...

Understanding CEO compensation plans is a continuing challenge for directors and investors. The disclosure of these plans is dictated by SEC rules that rely heavily on the “fair value” of awards at the time they are granted. The problem with these numbers is that they are static and do not...

Influenced by their compensation plans, CEOs make their own luck through decisions that affect future firm risk. After adopting a relative performance evaluation (RPE) plan, total and idiosyncratic risk are higher, and the correlation between firm and industry performance is lower. The opposite...

We examine boards of directors' subjective adjustments to objective performance measures in executive incentive contracts. Using a unique hand-collected sample of adjusted earnings per share measures used to determine executives' annual bonuses, we provide large-sample evidence that subjective...

This study investigates whether the inconsistent findings on the implementation of relative performance evaluation (RPE) can be explained by CEOs' control over their pay process and by the interaction of RPE with pay-for-luck. Using a sample of CEO bonus compensation awards from 1992 to 2008, we...

This paper studies a principal-agent model in which the information on future firm performance is ambiguous and the agent is averse to ambiguity. We show that if firm risk is ambiguous, while stocks always induce the agent to perceive a high risk, options can induce him to perceive a low risk....

We investigate the role of Relative Performance Evaluation (RPE) theory in CEO pay and turnover using a product similarity-based definition of peers (Hoberg and Phillips 2016). RPE predicts that firms filter out common shocks (i.e., those affecting the firm and its peers) while evaluating CEO...

The rise in the level of executive compensation in international banking in the last two decades has been striking. At the same time, corporate declarations of relative performance evaluation (RPE) have enjoyed widespread popularity. RPE determines the level of CEO pay by accounting for common...

In assessing the performance of the CEO, subjectivity by the board of directors is often present in one form or another. We specifically focus on: (1) the ex ante option to ex post override a formula-based contract (“discretionary bonus”), and (2) the ex ante absence of any formula in a...