IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jbfnac/v41y2014i7-8p1042-1070.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Drives Executive Stock Option Backdating?

Author

Listed:
  • Chris Veld
  • Betty H.T. Wu

Abstract

We study motives for executive stock option backdating, the practice of changing the grant dates of current options to dates in the past using hindsight. We find that smaller, younger and less profitable firms tend to be more heavily involved in backdating. These results are consistent with the retention hypothesis. In line with the incentive hypothesis, we find that backdating occurs more for options that are out-of-the-money. We derive some evidence for the agency hypothesis, in the sense that backdating companies have a larger percentage of inside directors. However, contrary to this hypothesis, we conclude that backdating firms have better protection for minority shareholders compared to firms that do not backdate.

Suggested Citation

  • Chris Veld & Betty H.T. Wu, 2014. "What Drives Executive Stock Option Backdating?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(7-8), pages 1042-1070, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jbfnac:v:41:y:2014:i:7-8:p:1042-1070
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jbfa.12077
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Acharya, Viral V. & John, Kose & Sundaram, Rangarajan K., 2000. "On the optimality of resetting executive stock options," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 65-101, July.
    2. Yermack, David, 1997. "Good Timing: CEO Stock Option Awards and Company News Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 449-476, June.
    3. Lucian Bebchuk & Alma Cohen & Allen Ferrell, 2009. "What Matters in Corporate Governance?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(2), pages 783-827, February.
    4. Core, John & Guay, Wayne, 1999. "The use of equity grants to manage optimal equity incentive levels," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 151-184, December.
    5. Bernile, Gennaro & Jarrell, Gregg A., 2009. "The impact of the options backdating scandal on shareholders," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 2-26, March.
    6. Sandra Renfro Callaghan & P. Jane Saly & Chandra Subramaniam, 2004. "The Timing of Option Repricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1651-1676, August.
    7. C. Veld, 2003. "Analysis of a practical formula for the valuation of employee stock options," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 205-208.
    8. John Bizjak & Michael Lemmon & Ryan Whitby, 2009. "Option Backdating and Board Interlocks," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(11), pages 4821-4847, November.
    9. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    10. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January.
    11. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    12. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation," Scholarly Articles 29407535, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    13. Randall A. Heron & Erik Lie, 2009. "What Fraction of Stock Option Grants to Top Executives Have Been Backdated or Manipulated?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 513-525, April.
    14. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Larcker, David F., 2009. "Discussion of "The impact of the options backdating scandal on shareholders" and "Taxes and the backdating of stock option exercise dates"," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 50-58, March.
    15. Yermack, David, 1996. "Higher market valuation of companies with a small board of directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 185-211, February.
    16. Paul Brockman & Xiumin Martin & Emre Unlu, 2010. "Executive Compensation and the Maturity Structure of Corporate Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(3), pages 1123-1161, June.
    17. Chauvin, Keith W. & Shenoy, Catherine, 2001. "Stock price decreases prior to executive stock option grants," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 53-76, March.
    18. Scholes, Myron S, 1991. "Stock and Compensation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(3), pages 803-823, July.
    19. Aboody, David & Kasznik, Ron, 2000. "CEO stock option awards and the timing of corporate voluntary disclosures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 73-100, February.
    20. Carter, Mary Ellen & Lynch, Luann J., 2003. "The consequences of the FASB's 1998 proposal on accounting for stock option repricing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 51-72, April.
    21. Heron, Randall A. & Lie, Erik, 2007. "Does backdating explain the stock price pattern around executive stock option grants?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 271-295, February.
    22. Dhaliwal, Dan & Erickson, Merle & Heitzman, Shane, 2009. "Taxes and the backdating of stock option exercise dates," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1-2), pages 27-49, March.
    23. Mark A. Chen, 2004. "Executive Option Repricing, Incentives, and Retention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1167-1200, June.
    24. John Core & Wayne Guay, 2002. "Estimating the Value of Employee Stock Option Portfolios and Their Sensitivities to Price and Volatility," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(3), pages 613-630, June.
    25. Erik Lie, 2005. "On the Timing of CEO Stock Option Awards," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 51(5), pages 802-812, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carver, Brian T. & Cline, Brandon N. & Hoag, Matthew L., 2013. "Underperformance of founder-led firms: An examination of compensation contracting theories during the executive stock options backdating scandal," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 294-310.
    2. Kristina Minnick & Mengxin Zhao, 2009. "Backdating And Director Incentives: Money Or Reputation?," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 32(4), pages 449-477, December.
    3. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Yaniv Grinstein & Urs Peyer, 2006. "Lucky Directors," NBER Working Papers 12811, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Ertimur, Yonca & Ferri, Fabrizio & Maber, David A., 2012. "Reputation penalties for poor monitoring of executive pay: Evidence from option backdating," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(1), pages 118-144.
    5. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    6. Gulen, Huseyin & O'Brien, William J., 2017. "Option repricing, corporate governance, and the effect of shareholder empowerment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 389-415.
    7. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cremers, K.J. Martijn & Peyer, Urs C., 2011. "The CEO pay slice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 199-221, October.
    8. Blacconiere, Walter G. & Frederickson, James R. & Johnson, Marilyn F. & Lewis, Melissa F., 2011. "Are voluntary disclosures that disavow the reliability of mandated fair value information informative or opportunistic?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 235-251.
    9. Hongfei Tang, 2014. "Are CEO stock option grants optimal? Evidence from family firms and non-family firms around the Sarbanes–Oxley Act," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 251-292, February.
    10. Drobetz, Wolfgang & von Meyerinck, Felix & Oesch, David & Schmid, Markus, 2014. "Board Industry Experience, Firm Value, and Investment Behavior," Working Papers on Finance 1401, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance, revised Dec 2015.
    11. Devos, Erik & Elliott, William B. & Warr, Richard S., 2015. "CEO opportunism?: Option grants and stock trades around stock splits," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 18-35.
    12. Heitzman, Shane, 2011. "Equity grants to target CEOs during deal negotiations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 251-271.
    13. Chari, Murali D.R. & David, Parthiban & Duru, Augustine & Zhao, Yijiang, 2019. "Bowman's risk-return paradox: An agency theory perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 357-375.
    14. Randall A. Heron & Erik Lie, 2009. "What Fraction of Stock Option Grants to Top Executives Have Been Backdated or Manipulated?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(4), pages 513-525, April.
    15. Dong, Zhiyong & Wang, Cong & Xie, Fei, 2010. "Do executive stock options induce excessive risk taking?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2518-2529, October.
    16. Atul Gupta & Kristina Minnick, 2022. "Social capital and managerial opportunism: Evidence from option backdating," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 45(3), pages 579-605, September.
    17. Qian, Meifen & Sun, Ping-Wen & Yu, Bin, 2018. "Top managerial power and stock price efficiency: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 20-38.
    18. Huang, Minjie & Kubick, Thomas R. & Tseng, Kevin, 2021. "Technology spillovers and the duration of executive compensation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    19. James, Hui & Benson, Bradley W. & Wu, Chen (Ken), 2017. "Does CEO ownership affect payout policy? Evidence from using CEO scaled wealth-performance sensitivity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 328-345.
    20. repec:cte:wbrepe:wb1501 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Chongwoo Choe & Gloria Tian & Xiangkang Yin, 2008. "Managerial Power, Stock-Based Compensation, And Firm Performance: Theory And Evidence," Monash Economics Working Papers 21/08, Monash University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jbfnac:v:41:y:2014:i:7-8:p:1042-1070. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0306-686X .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.