Equity pay has been the primary component of managerial compensation packages at US public firms since the early 1990s. Using a comprehensive sample of top executives from 1992-2020, we estimate to what extent they trade firm equity held in their portfolios to neutralize increments in ownership...

This paper examines the reliance on ESG metrics in executive compensation contracts. In our sample of international publicly traded firms, a rapidly growing fraction incorporate ESG metrics in the compensation schemes of their top executives. Our analysis links the reliance on these metrics to...

We analyze the effects of optimism and overconfidence when the manager's compensation package includes severance pay and the CEO has bargaining power. We find that optimism does not affect incentive pay but increases severance pay with a negative effect on profit. Overconfidence, on the...

Economic, social and governance (ESG) have become topical subjects amidst the deleterious effects of climate change, inequality and similar pressing challenges facing the people and the planet. The main objective of this study was to rank the importance of both the pillars within the ESG model...

We study the gender pay gap in the labor market for CEOs by analysing 1,174 outsider CEO successions over the past three decades across 18 countries. We find that male and female CEOs receive a similar compensation overall but this masks marked gender differences in the pay structure: namely,...

This article presents a systematic review of the theoretical and empirical literature on option grants and managerial risk taking. One of the objectives is the motivation of further research on the topic. Risk-averse managers hold less diversified portfolios and, thus, tend to take less risk...

This study aimed to analyze the relationship between the director pay slice and firm financial performance. This study used 1024 observations from companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2011 to 2019. The analytical technique used in this study was ordinary least square regression...

Purpose: The nature of each component of executive compensation varies, resulting in variances in executive in- centives and investor pricing. To examine whether there is a differential relation between executive compensation components and cost of equity capital, this study decomposes the...

The mechanism by which enterprises set salaries is vitally important to employees and is especially relevant to the reform of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This paper investigates the effect of comparing employee compensation based on a sample of A-share SOE groups from 2008 to 2018. We find...

We investigate the effectiveness of tournament theory based on the age gap between the CEO and the top management team (TMT) in Korean firms. While tournament incentives encourage managers to work harder to improve their performance, their effects may differ on executives’ sociological and...

This paper examines the use of ESG performance metrics in executive compensation contracts. We first document that a growing fraction of publicly traded companies around the world now incorporate ESG metrics in the compensation schemes of their top executives. Our analysis links the reliance on...

This paper examines the use of ESG performance metrics in executive compensation contracts. We first document that a growing fraction of publicly traded companies around the world now incorporate ESG metrics in the compensation schemes of their top executives. Our analysis links the reliance on...

Using a unique sample of Chinese business group firms required by the government to disclose double financial statements for the parent and its subsidiaries, we examine the impact of a decentralized decision structure on executive compensation and further tests its mechanism. Our findings show...

We investigate the effect of CEO hedging on the likelihood and characteristics of M&A decisions. Because of their higher degree of risk tolerance, hedged CEOs are more likely to engage in M&As and are more likely to acquire private and smaller targets. M&A deals by hedged CEOs appear to create...

Chief executive officers (CEOs) are typically paid great amounts of money in wages and bonuses by commercial companies. This is sometimes defended with an argument from peer comparison; roughly that "our" CEO has to be paid in accordance with what other CEOs at comparable companies get. At first...

This article has a two-fold purpose. First, we investigate whether the CEOs’ risk-taking incentives are associated with better concurrent firm performance. Second, we examine the impact of gender on the aforementioned relationship. We find solid empirical evidence that CEOs’ risk-aversion...

An unprecedented number of firms announced CEO salary reductions at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which we argue was triggered by an exogenous increase in stakeholder outrage toward executive pay. We document that the overall compensation of these CEOs did not meaningfully decrease...

Research Question/Issue: Does inside debt compensation affect previous thought on compensation effects in IPOs? What explains variation in compensation when a company goes public? What is the composition of CEO compensation in an IPO? What types of compensation may be more optimal for or are...

We analyze the incentives of CEO inside debt in the form of pensions and deferred compensation in the context of merger and acquisition decisions. CEO inside debt holdings are negatively associated with the likelihood of the firm engaging in merger or acquisition activity. When firms with...

This paper investigates the impact of firms’ positions in the network of intersectoral input-output linkages on the use, intensity, and implementation of relative performance evaluation (RPE) in CEO compensation contracts. Consistent with a fundamental but not thoroughly investigated...

We analytically study the economic consequences of the disclosure of managerial compensation contracts in a setting where two firms, by designing compensation contracts for their respective managers, compete for a new investment opportunity. Each manager is privately informed about her firm's...