Using a hand-collected executive pension database, we study how both CEO and non-CEO executive compensation structures affect the overall risk of a firm. We accomplish three major objectives: (i) we provide a significant extension of the Sundaram and Yermack (2007) research framework by...

Using a sample of 3 Icelandic and 153 US banks (8 of which have since failed), we construct a historical VaR framework and discuss the relative thoroughness of market risk management for US and Icelandic firms. The paper seeks to determine the drivers of provisional loan losses (PLL), a...

This study is the first to show that the extent of executive pensions directly affects firm dividend policy. We argue and find that managers with high pension holdings are less likely to adapt a high dividend policy that can risk the managers' future pension payouts. Using a hand-collected...

We explore the effects of tax avoidance and tax risk on stock return volatilities of U.S. firms. We find that firms with very low and very high levels of tax avoidance and firms with high levels of tax risk have more volatile stock returns. We observe that tax avoidance primarily affects stock...

Employing a cluster analysis of 43 different European nations and 77 European banks, we find that significant differences exist between the country-level and firm-level financial risk characteristics. We find four basic financial systems exist in our sample countries based on the concentration...