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Too Much Is Not Enough

Too Much Is Not Enough Incentives in Executive Compensation

  • Author:
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
  • ISBN: 9780199829583
  • Published In: August 2012
  • Format: Hardback , 240 pages
  • Jurisdiction: U.S. ? Disclaimer:
    Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only
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  • Description 
  • Contents 
  • Author 
  • Details

    • The first book to offer a good survey of the empirical data on the actual results of various incentive scheme studies
    • Many of the most interesting issues raised by the book are just now becoming central to the academic debate about incentives in the boardroom

    The scholarly literature on executive compensation is vast. As such, this literature provides an unparalleled resource for studying the interaction between the setting of incentives (or the attempted setting of incentives) and the behavior that is actually adduced. From this literature, there are several reasons for believing that one can set incentives in executive compensation with a high rate of success in guiding CEO behavior, and one might expect CEO compensation to be a textbook example of the successful use of incentives. Also, as executive compensation has been studied intensively in the academic literature, we might also expect the success of incentive compensation to be well-documented. Historically, however, this has been very far from the case.

    In Too Much Is Not Enough, Robert W. Kolb studies the performance of incentives in executive compensation across many dimensions of CEO performance. The book begins with an overview of incentives and unintended consequences. Then it focuses on the theory of incentives as applied to compensation generally, and as applied to executive compensation particularly. Subsequent chapters explore different facets of executive compensation and assess the evidence on how well incentive compensation performs in each arena. The book concludes with a final chapter that provides an overall assessment of the value of incentives in guiding executive behavior. In it, Kolb argues that incentive compensation for executives is so problematic and so prone to error that the social value of giving huge incentive compensation packages is likely to be negative on balance. In focusing on incentives, the book provides a much sought-after resource, for while there are a number of books on executive compensation, none focuses specifically on incentives. Given the recent fervor over executive compensation, this unique but logical perspective will garner much interest. And while the literature being considered and evaluated is technical, the book is written in a non-mathematical way accessible to any college-educated reader.

    Readership: Scholars and students of finance and corporate governance, business administration, and management, as well as those who study the economics of incentives, and of labor compensation.

  • Preface

    1. The Magnitude and Structure of Executive Compensation

    • The Magnitude of CEO Compensation
    • The Structure of Executive Compensation
    • Salary
    • Bonuses and Long-Term Incentive Plans
    • Restricted Stock Awards
    • Executive Stock Option (ESO) Awards
    • Other Forms of Compensation

    2. Corporate Governance, Agency Problems, and Executive Compensation

    • Corporate Governance
    • Agency Theory and Incentive Alignment
    • Corporate Governance, Incentive Alignment, and the Managerial Power Hypothesis
    • The Levers of Managerial Power
    • Limits to Pay on the Managerial Power Hypothesis
    • Assessing the Conceptual Conflict Between the Agency-Theoretic and Managerial Power Views of Executive Compensation
    • What about Ethics, Duty, and Justice?
    • Fiduciary Duty
    • Executive Compensation and Distributive Justice

    3. The Incentive Structure of Executive Compensation

    • The Incentive Revolution and Executive Compensation
    • Salary
    • Bonuses
    • Restricted Stock and Performance Shares
    • Executive Stock Options
    • Equity Compensation: Retaining the Employees You Have, and Attracting the Ones You Want
    • Different Instruments as Tools of Incentive Compensation

    4. Executive Stock Options and the Incentives They Create

    • ESO Incentives, Firm Practices, and the Effect of Accounting Rules
    • Option Pricing Models
    • Option Valuation Effects of Individual Option Parameters
    • The Option Pricing Model and Incentives
    • Executive Stock Option Design, Management, and Incentives
    • What Exercise Price?
    • Repricing and Reloading Executive Stock Options
    • The CEO's Utility and the Desire for ESOs

    5. Executive Stock Option Programs: The Behavior of CEOs, Firms, and Investors

    • CEO Wealth, Pay, and Performance
    • Exercise of ESOs
    • BOX 1: Detecting Abnormal Stock Market Performance
    • Unwinding Incentives

    6. Executive Incentives and Risk-Taking

    • Equity Compensation and the CEO's Risk Appetite
    • Executive Compensation and the Risk-Taking Behavior of CEOs
    • Incentive Compensation, Risk-Taking, and the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009

    7. Incentive Compensation and the Management of the Firm

    • Incentive Compensation and the Firm's Investment Program
    • CEO Incentives and the Firm's Financing Decisions
    • Compensation Incentives, Dividends, and Share Repurchases,
    • Corporate Mergers, Acquisitions, and Liquidations
    • Compensation Incentives and Corporate Risk Management
    • Compensation Incentives and Corporate Disclosures

    8. Perverse Incentive Effects: Executives Behaving Badly

    • Earnings Management
    • Option Games and Exploitation
    • Option Games: A Warning About Incentives in Executive Compensation

    9. Incentives in Executive Compensation: A Final Assessment

    • Incentive Compensation and the Level of Executive Pay
    • New Legislation and the Shaping of Incentives
    • How Dysfunctional is Executive Pay?
    • On Balance, Is Incentive Compensation Beneficial?
    • To Improve Executive Compensation, Improve Corporate Governance
    • Executive Pay, Continuing Inequality, and the Question of Justice

    Appendix: Binomial Valuation Method for Executive Stock Options

    Notes

    References

    Index

  • Robert W. Kolb, Professor of Finance and Frank W. Considine Chair of Applied Ethics, Loyola University Chicago

    Robert W. Kolb is Professor of Finance and Frank W. Considine Chair of Applied Ethics at Loyola University Chicago. He has been professor of finance at the University of Florida, Emory University, the University of Miami, and the University of Colorado, and has published more than 20 books, including Lessons from the Financial Crisis: Causes, Consequences, and Our Economic Future and Futures, Options, and Swaps.

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