IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/434.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty in Executive Compensation and Capital Investment: A Panel Study

Author

Listed:
  • Atreya Chakraborty

    (Brandeis University)

  • Mark Kazarosian

    (Boston College)

  • Emery Trahan

    (Northeastern University)

Abstract

We test whether uncertainty in the CEO's compensation influences the firm's investment decisions, using panel compensation data and cross-sectional invetsment data. Given the prospect of bearing extra risk, a rational agent reacts to minimize the impact of such risk. We provide evidence that CEOs with high earnings uncertainty invest less. As expected, the negative impact of permanent earnings uncertainty on firm investment is larger than that of transitory earnings uncertainty. The results are robust to several alternative specifications and lend support to Stulz' over-investment hypothesis. Knowing how investment is tied to the CEO's earnings uncertainty helps in building the correct compensation package.

Suggested Citation

  • Atreya Chakraborty & Mark Kazarosian & Emery Trahan, 1999. "Uncertainty in Executive Compensation and Capital Investment: A Panel Study," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 434, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:434
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp434.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baker, George P & Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1988. " Compensation and Incentives: Practice vs. Theory," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 43(3), pages 593-616, July.
    2. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Watts, Ross L., 1992. "The investment opportunity set and corporate financing, dividend, and compensation policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 263-292, December.
    3. Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 1992. "Does Executive Compensation Affect Investment?," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 5(2), pages 99-109, June.
    4. Mark Kazarosian, 1997. "Precautionary Savings-A Panel Study," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 241-247, May.
    5. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1988. "Consumption: Beyond Certainty Equivalence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 173-177, May.
    6. Lusardi, Annamaria, 1997. "Precautionary saving and subjective earnings variance," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 319-326, December.
    7. Stulz, ReneM., 1990. "Managerial discretion and optimal financing policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 3-27, July.
    8. Donald Cox, 1990. "Intergenerational Transfers and Liquidity Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 105(1), pages 187-217.
    9. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    10. Christopher D. Carroll, 1991. "Buffer stock saving and the permanent income hypothesis," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 114, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    11. Murphy, Kevin J., 1985. "Corporate performance and managerial remuneration : An empirical analysis," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1-3), pages 11-42, April.
    12. Chamberlain, Gary, 1982. "Multivariate regression models for panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 5-46, January.
    13. Kimball, Miles S, 1990. "Precautionary Saving in the Small and in the Large," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(1), pages 53-73, January.
    14. Skinner, Jonathan, 1988. "Risky income, life cycle consumption, and precautionary savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 237-255, September.
    15. Caballero, Ricardo J., 1990. "Consumption puzzles and precautionary savings," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 113-136, January.
    16. Lang, Larry H. P. & Stulz, ReneM. & Walkling, Ralph A., 1991. "A test of the free cash flow hypothesis*1: The case of bidder returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 315-335, October.
    17. Kenneth Lehn & Annette Poulsen, 1989. "Free Cash Flow and Stockholder Gains in Going Private Transactions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 771-787, July.
    18. 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.
    19. Jennifer J. Gaver & Kenneth M. Gaver, 1995. "Compensation Policy and the Investment Opportunity Set," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 24(1), Spring.
    20. Mehran, Hamid, 1995. "Executive compensation structure, ownership, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 163-184, June.
    21. Hall, Robert E & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 461-481, March.
    22. Mervyn A. King & Louis Dicks-Mireaux, 1981. "Asset Holdings and the Life Cycle," NBER Working Papers 0614, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    24. Larcker, David F., 1983. "The association between performance plan adoption and corporate capital investment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 3-30, April.
    25. Hayne E. Leland, 1968. "Saving and Uncertainty: The Precautionary Demand for Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 82(3), pages 465-473.
    26. Lehn, Kenneth & Poulsen, Annette, 1989. " Free Cash Flow and Stockholder Gains in Going Private Transactions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 44(3), pages 771-787, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Elisabete Duante Neves, 2017. "Payout and Firm's Catering," International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), International Journal of Economics & Business Administration (IJEBA), vol. 0(4), pages 104-132.
    2. Wright, Peter & Mukherji, Ananda & Kroll, Mark J., 2001. "A reexamination of agency theory assumptions: extensions and extrapolations," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 413-429.
    3. repec:ers:journl:v:v:y:2017:i:4:p:104-132 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Choe, Heungsik & Lee, Bong-Soo, 2003. "Korean bank governance reform after the Asian financial crisis," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 483-508, September.
    5. Ei Yet Chu & Saw Imm Song, 2012. "Executive Compensation, Earnings Management and Over Investment in Malaysia," Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting and Finance (AAMJAF), Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, vol. 8(Supp. 1), pages 13-37.

    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. Atreya Chakraborty & Mark Kazarosian, 1999. "Portfolio Allocation of Precautionary Assets: Panel Evidence for the United States," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 432, Boston College Department of Economics.
    2. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    3. Julan Du & Charles Ka Yui Leung & Derek Chu, 2014. "Return Enhancing, Cash-rich or simply Empire-Building? An Empirical Investigation of Corporate Real Estate Holdings," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 17(3), pages 301-357.
    4. Alba Lugilde & Roberto Bande & Dolores Riveiro, 2018. "Precautionary saving in Spain during the great recession: evidence from a panel of uncertainty indicators," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 1151-1179, December.
    5. M. Ameziane Lasfer, 1997. "On the Motivation for Paying Scrip Dividends," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 26(1), Spring.
    6. Chalevas, Constantinos G., 2011. "The Effect of the Mandatory Adoption of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Executive Compensation," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 138-174, June.
    7. Lugilde, Alba & Bande, Roberto & Riveiro, Dolores, 2017. "Precautionary Saving: a review of the theory and the evidence," MPRA Paper 77511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Stephen Bryan & Robert Nash & Ajay Patel, 2010. "How the Legal System Affects the Equity Mix in Executive Compensation," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 39(1), pages 393-418, March.
    9. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2485-2563 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu & Rankin, Michaela & Haman, Janto, 2021. "The role of equity compensation in reducing inefficient investment in labor," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    11. Jayati Sarkar & Subrata Sarkar, 2005. "Debt and corporate governance in emerging economies: Evidence from India," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2005-007, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    12. Andrew Benito, 2002. "Does Job Insecurity Affect Household Consumption?," Working Papers 0225, Banco de España.
    13. Doocheol Moon & Kishore Tandon, 2007. "The influence of growth opportunities on the relationship between equity ownership and leverage," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 339-351, November.
    14. Doukas, John A. & McKnight, Phillip J. & Pantzalis, Christos, 2005. "Security analysis, agency costs, and UK firm characteristics," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 14(5), pages 493-507.
    15. Yu, Chih-Ping, 2015. "Financial policies on firm performance: The U.S. insurance industry before and after the global financial crisis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 391-402.
    16. Wolfgang Drobetz & Pascal Pensa & Markus M. Schmid, 2007. "Estimating the Cost of Executive Stock Options: evidence from Switzerland," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 798-815, September.
    17. Gomes, Fábio Augusto Reis & Ribeiro, Priscila Fernandes, 2015. "Estimating the elasticity of intertemporal substitution taking into account the precautionary savings motive," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 108-123.
    18. Gul, Ferdinand A. & L. Tsui, Judy S., 1997. "A test of the free cash flow and debt monitoring hypotheses:: Evidence from audit pricing," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 219-237, December.
    19. de Jong, A., 2001. "The Disciplining Role of Leverage in Dutch Firms," Other publications TiSEM 940ddf9b-7e19-460c-be52-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Lothar Essig, 2005. "Precautionary saving and old-age provisions: Do subjective saving motive measures work?," MEA discussion paper series 05084, Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy.
    21. Yu-Chi Wu & Yi-Feng Yang & Cheng-Se Hsu, 2022. "Relationship Between Innovative Leadership And Employee Service Innovation Behavior," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 16(1), pages 17-24.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    executive compensation; capital investment; uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:boc:bocoec:434. 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: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

    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.