We examine the implications of regulatory intervention in pay-setting, by studying whether executive compensation restrictions associated with the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) influence banks' participation in the program. We find that banks more likely to be impacted by the restrictions...

Despite claims that CEO compensation contracts are increasingly complex, little is known about the extent to which they are, what drives that complexity, and its implications. We develop a new measure of compensation contract complexity and find that complexity relates to factors capturing firm...

Using a sample of more than 1,500 US public firms in the period 1998-2016, we examine how firms endogenously adjust CEO compensation contracts when they become financially distressed. The link between compensation and equity-based measures of firm performance is positive and strong prior to...