Given CEOs' substantial equity portfolios, much recent literature on CEO incentives regards cash-based bonus plans as largely irrelevant, begging the question of why nearly all CEO compensation plans include such bonuses. We develop a new measure of bonus plan incentives, and document that...

Corporate executives receive a considerable portion of their compensation in the form of equity and, from time to time, sell a portion of their holdings in the open market. Executives nearly always have access to nonpublic information about the company, and routinely have an information...

In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission revised human capital disclosure rules to improve shareholder understanding of how HCM contributes to corporate value and strategy. In this Closer Look, we examine early disclosure choices that companies have made under these rules to evaluate the...

An extensive literature examines whether senior executives’ contractual incentives influence their financial reporting decisions. However, little is known about whether— and how—the incentives of lower-level (or “rank-and-file”) employees, who are perhaps even more directly involved in...

In this Closer Look, we examine individual investor perception of ESG to gauge their concern for environmental and social issues, their view of whether fund managers should use their voting power to influence ESG practices, and their willingness to sacrifice return in the advancement of ESG...