scholarly journals Executive Compensation and Risk Taking

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bolton ◽  
Hamid Mehran ◽  
Joel D. Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Executive Compensation ◽  
Risk Taking

Stock and Option Proportions in Executive Compensation

2011 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 169-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phelim P. Boyle ◽  
Ranjini Jha ◽  
Shannon Kennedy ◽  
Weidong Tian
Keyword(s):  
Executive Compensation ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Optimal Contract ◽  
Efficient Mechanism ◽  
Opposite Conclusion

There is controversy about the relative merits of stock and options in executive compensation. Some observers contend that stock is a more efficient mechanism, while others reach the opposite conclusion. We focus on the manager's risk-taking incentives and derive an optimal compensation contract by using the concept of a comparable benchmark and imposing a volatility constraint in a principal-agent framework. We demonstrate a joint role for both stock and options in the optimal contract. We show that firms with higher volatility should use more options in compensating their executives and provide empirical evidence supporting this testable implication.

Optimal Executive Compensation versus Managerial Power: A Review of Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried's Pay without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation

2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S Weisbach
Keyword(s):  
Executive Compensation ◽  
Effective Potential ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Corporate Performance ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Compensation Systems ◽  
Managerial Power ◽  
Positive Perspective ◽  
Normative Perspective

This essay reviews Lucian A. Bebchuk and Jesse M. Fried's Pay without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation. Bebchuk and Fried criticize the standard view of executive compensation, in which executives negotiate contracts with shareholders that provide incentives that motivate them to maximize the shareholders' welfare. In contrast, Bebchuk and Fried argue that executive compensation is more consistent with executives who control their own boards and who maximize their own compensation subject to an “outrage constraint.” They provide a host of evidence consistent with this alternative viewpoint. The book can be evaluated from both positive and normative perspectives. From a positive perspective, much of the evidence they present, especially about the camouflage and risk-taking aspects of executive compensation systems, is fairly persuasive. However, from a normative perspective, the book conveys the idea that policy changes can dramatically improve executive compensation systems and consequently overall corporate performance. It is unclear to me how effective potential reforms designed to achieve such changes are likely to be in practice.

scholarly journals The Effect of Executive Compensation on Credit Default Swap Spread

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Meizaroh Meizaroh ◽  
Masripah Masripah
Keyword(s):  
Executive Compensation ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Credit Default Swap ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Credit Default ◽  
Default Swap ◽  
Risk Taking Behavior ◽  
The Impact

Investors have been trying to formulate the optimum composition of executives’ compensation which will incentivize the executives to perform better and act in the shareholders’ best interests. This study aims to find empirical evidence about the impact of executive compensation on the default risk with the Credit Default Swap (CDS) spread as the proxy, using panel data to test the research model, which combines the analysis of cross-section and time series data. The study is conducted based on 1,416 observations of 177 U.S. companies from 2008-2015. The data are mainly collected from Datastream, Compustat, CRSP, and the US SEC’s EDGAR database. The current study provides a contribution by suggesting that executives’ compensation will trigger risk-taking behavior. The results of this study reveal, firstly, both equity-based compensation and debt-like compensation induce risk-taking behavior by the executives. Secondly, the correlation between both the form of the compensation and the CDS spread is weakened in a high information asymmetry environment. Lastly, this study finds that a CFO’s compensation has more influence on the CDS spread, compared to the other board executives, but this condition only occurs when the compensation is awarded in the form of debt-like compensation. To improve the generalization of the results, a further study may consider expanding the sample into several countries.

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