We examine whether risk-taking among the largest financial firms in the U.S. is related to CEO equity incentives before the 2008 financial crisis. Using data on U.S. Federal Reserve emergency loans provided to these firms, we find that the amount of emergency loans and total days the loans are...

We study CEO compensation in the banking industry by considering banks' unique claim structure in the presence of two types of agency problems: the standard managerial agency problem and the risk-shifting problem between shareholders and debt holders. We empirically test two hypotheses derived...

An underlying assumption in the executive compensation literature is that there is a national labor market for CEOs. The urban economics literature, however, documents higher ability among workers in large metropolitians, which results in a real and stable urban wage premium. In this paper, we...

We study the effect of board gender diversity on executive and director equity-linked incentives. The provision of equity incentives to executives is costly for shareholders. We argue theoretically that the optimal compensation given to executives by a board with superior monitoring ability will...