This thesis comprises three studies on CEO compensation in the UK. It specifically examines the role of CEO defined-benefit pensions, compensation consultants and CEO stock options.Firstly, research on the role of executive pensions is still at a stage of infancy due to data difficulties...

One-period expected returns on futures contracts with different maturities differ because of risk premia in the spreads between futures and spot prices. We analyze the expected returns for futures contracts with different maturities using the information that is present in the current term...

"Since 1998, large investment banks have become active as issuers of options, generally referred to as call warrants or bank-issued options. This has led to an interesting situation in the Netherlands, where simultaneously call warrants are traded on the stock exchange, and long-term call...

This paper investigates the pricing of Dutch index warrants. It is found that when using the historical standard deviation as an estimate for the volatility, the Black and Scholes model underprices all put warrants and call warrants on the FT-SE 100 and the CAC 40, while it overprices the call...

The question of why individual investors want dividends is investigated by submitting a questionnaire to a Dutch investor panel. The respondents indicate that they want dividends partly because the cost of cashing in dividends is lower than the cost of selling shares. Their answers provide...

We present a simple model implying that futures risk premia depend on both own-market and cross-market hedging pressures. Empirical evidence from 20 futures markets, divided into four groups (financial, agricultural, mineral, and currency) indicates that, after controlling for systematic risk,...