This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on executive compensation. We
start by presenting data on the level of CEO and other top executive pay over time and …

This paper surveys the recent literature on CEO compensation. The rapid rise in CEO pay
over the past 30 years has sparked an intense debate about the nature of the pay-setting …

We provide evidence that the use of discretionary accruals to manipulate reported earnings
is more pronounced at firms where the CEO's potential total compensation is more closely …

This paper shows that CEOs are fired after bad firm performance caused by factors beyond
their control. Standard economic theory predicts that corporate boards filter out exogenous …

Historically, bubbles are followed by crashes, which in turn are followed by punitive
legislation. The 1999–2003 era is fully consistent with this pattern….(Coffee, 2003a, p. 46) …

We compare executive equity incentives of firms accused of accounting fraud by the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during the period 1996–2003 with two …

Many firms issue stock options to all employees. We consider three potential economic
justifications for this practice: providing incentives to employees, inducing employees to sort …

This paper provides evidence that top managers have contrarian views on firm value.
Managers' perceptions of fundamental value diverge systematically from market valuations …

We estimate the relation between stock option (ESO) grants to the top five executives and
future earnings to examine whether incentive alignment or rent extraction by top managers …

This article studies traditional and modern theories of executive compensation, bringing
them together under a simple unifying framework accessible to the general-interest reader …