How Important are Risk-Taking Incentives in Executive Compensation?
Review of Finance, Forthcoming
European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) - Finance Working Paper No. 473/2016
53 Pages Posted: 26 Jul 2008 Last revised: 27 Mar 2017
Date Written: March 13, 2017
Abstract
Abstract We consider a model in which shareholders provide a risk-averse CEO with risk-taking incentives in addition to effort incentives. We show that the optimal contract protects the CEO from losses for bad outcomes and is convex for medium outcomes and concave for good outcomes. We calibrate the model to data on 1,707 CEOs and show that it explains observed contracts much better than the standard model without risk-taking incentives. When we apply the model to contracts that consist of base salary, stock, and options, the results suggest that options should be issued in the money. Our model also helps us rationalize the universal use of at-the-money options when the tax code is taken into account. Moreover, we propose a new way of measuring risk-taking incentives in which the expected value added to the firm is traded off against the additional risk a CEO has to bear.
Keywords: Stock Options, Effort Aversion, Executive Compensation, Risk Aversion, Risk-Taking Incentives, Optimal Strike Price
JEL Classification: G30, M52
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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