[...]We also concentrate our survey on literature that testseconomic hypotheses within samples of U.S. firms. However,we believe that much of our discussion can be generalized tofirms throughout the world. Bushman and Smith (2003)present a broad overview of how differences in...

This article addresses four major concerns about the pay of U.S. CEOs: (1) failure to pay for performance; (2) excessive levels of pay; (3) failure to index options and other equity-based pay, resulting in windfalls; and (4) too much unwinding of incentives. The authors' main message is that most...

In a recent and influential empirical paper, Francis, LaFond, Olsson, and Schipper (FLOS) [2005. The market pricing of accruals quality. Journal of Accounting and Economics 39, 295-327] conclude that accruals quality (AQ) is a priced risk factor. We explain that FLOS' regressions examining a...

Although recent research documents a positive relation between corporate transparency and the proportion of independent directors, the direction of causality is unclear. We examine a regulatory shock that substantially increased board independence for some firms, and find that information...

We compute and compare risk-adjusted CEO pay in the United States and United Kingdom, where the risk adjustment is based on estimated risk premiums stemming from the equity incentives borne by CEOs. Controlling for firm and industry characteristics, we find that U.S. CEOs have higher pay, but...