Traditional stock option grant is the most common form of incentive pay in executive compensation. Applying a principal-agent analysis, we find this common practice suboptimal and firms are better off linking incentive pay to average stock prices. Holding the cost of the option grant to the firm...

Traditional stock option grant is the most common form of incentive pay in executive compensation. Applying a principal-agent analysis, we find this common practice suboptimal and firms are better off linking incentive pay to average stock prices. Among other benefits, averaging reduces...

Managers whose equity-based incentives vest over a shorter time horizon appear to adopt strategies that reduce information environment quality and exacerbate information heterogeneity across investors. Firms with shorter-horizon managerial incentives are more likely to inflate reported earnings...