This paper studies dynamic risk taking by a risk-averse manager who receives a bonus; the company may default on its contractual obligations (debt, fixed compensation). We show that risk-taking is time-independent, and is summarized by the so-called risk-aversion of derived utility. We highlight...

Mutual fund managers' compensation packages often contain relative performance-dependent components such as year-end bonus. We examine the incentive effect of such compensation structure using a dynamic trading model with uncertain expected return and costly information. We show that relative...

We use a unique dataset of European performance-fee mutual funds to examine the interaction between explicit incentives (performance fees) and implicit incentives (fund flows) of asset managers. Funds with performance fees face substantially steeper implicit incentives compared to...

In this paper, we study the risk taking implications of managerial pay-for-performance incentives (delta). The extant empirical literature is built on the presumption that each unit of delta has an equal risk inducing effect regardless of its source. Instead, following the predictions of the...

This paper studies optimal executive pay when the CEO is concerned about fairness: if his wage falls below a perceived fair share of output, the CEO suffers disutility that is increasing in the discrepancy. Fairness concerns do not lead to fair wages always being paid -- to induce effort, the...

This paper studies dynamic compensation and risk management under cash flow volatility shocks. The optimal contract depends critically on firms' ability to make good on promised future payments to managers. When volatility is low, firms with full commitment ability implement high pay-performance...

We theoretically investigate the effect of public information — such as credit ratings and securities analysts' reports — on investor welfare in the context of delegated asset management. Specifically, we ask: does more precise public information increase investor welfare by decreasing an...

We study a dynamic contracting problem in continuous-time dynamically complete market general equilibrium, whereby an investor must delegate all his portfolio choice problems to a manager. This framework is one of the first attempts to attack a combined dynamic contracting and dynamic asset...

I study a continuous-time principal-agent model in which a multitasking agent engages in unobserved risk-taking. Risk-taking creates short-term profits but also increases the chance of large losses. The optimal contract incentivizes excessive risk-taking when the agent has insufficient skin in...

I study the optimal choice of investment projects in a continuous time moral hazard model with multitasking. While in the first best, projects are invariably chosen by the net present value (NPV) criterion, moral hazard introduces a cutoff for project execution which depends on both a project's...