We study changes in independent director behavior and labor market outcomes after experiencing a forced CEO turnover. We find they are more willing to fire CEOs of underperforming firms, hire outside CEOs after a firing and encourage better board meeting attendance by fellow directors. We also...

This article surveys the recent literature on boards of directors and the interplay between director incentives and CEO incentives. The primary focus is on how the incentives and other characteristics of directors, boards and CEOs interact to affect firm performance. The article reviews the...

We study how the existence of important production contracts affects the choice of CEO compensation contracts. We hypothesize that having major customers raises the costs associated with CEO risk-taking incentives and leads to lower option-based compensation. Using industry-level import tariff...

We explore the determinants of compensation gaps between a firm's CEO and its other top executives, and compare the ability of two competing optimal contracting theories, namely tournament theory and productivity theory, to explain the cross sectional variability in these gaps across firms. We...