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Leading Indicator Variables, Performance Measurement, and Long‐Term Versus Short‐Term Contracts

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  • Sunil Dutta
  • Stefan Reichelstein

Abstract

In this article we develop a multiperiod agency model to study the role of leading indicator variables in managerial performance measures. In addition to the familiar moral hazard problem, the principal faces the task of motivating a manager to undertake “soft” investments. These investments are not directly contractible, but the principal can instead rely on leading indicator variables that provide a noisy forecast of the investment returns to be received in future periods. Our analysis relates the role of leading indicator variables to the duration of the manager's incentive contract. With short‐term contracts, leading indicator variables are essential in mitigating a holdup problem resulting from the fact that investments are sunk at the end of the first period. With long‐term contracts, leading indicator variables will be valuable if the manager's compensation schemes are not stationary over time. The leading indicator variables then become an instrument for matching the future investment return with the current investment expenditure. We identify conditions under which the optimal long‐term contract induces larger investments and less reliance on the leading indicator variables as compared with short‐term contracts. Under certain conditions, though, the principal does better with a sequence of one‐period contracts than with a long‐term contract.

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  • Sunil Dutta & Stefan Reichelstein, 2003. "Leading Indicator Variables, Performance Measurement, and Long‐Term Versus Short‐Term Contracts," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 837-866, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:joares:v:41:y:2003:i:5:p:837-866
    DOI: 10.1046/j.1475-679X.2003.00125.x
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    2. Margaret A. Abernethy & Jan Bouwens & Laurence Van Lent, 2013. "The Role of Performance Measures in the Intertemporal Decisions of Business Unit Managers," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 925-961, September.
    3. Michal Matv{e}jka & Kenneth A. Merchant & Wim A. Van der Stede, 2009. "Employment Horizon and the Choice of Performance Measures: Empirical Evidence from Annual Bonus Plans of Loss-Making Entities," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(6), pages 890-905, June.
    4. Florin c{S}abac, 2007. "Dynamic Agency with Renegotiation and Managerial Tenure," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(5), pages 849-864, May.
    5. Cohen, Shira & Kadach, Igor & Ormazabal, Gaizka & Reichelstein, Stefan, 2022. "Executive compensation tied to ESG performance: International evidence," ZEW Discussion Papers 22-051, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    6. Meißner, Fabian & Schneider, Georg & Sureth, Caren, 2013. "The impact of corporate taxes and flexibility on entrepreneurial decisions with moral hazard and simultaneous firm and personal level taxation," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 141, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    7. Dutta, Sunil & Reichelstein, Stefan J., 2004. "Stock Price, Earnings and Book Value in Managerial Performance Measures," Research Papers 1873, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    8. Meg Adachi-Sato, 2021. "Contract Duration and Socially Responsible Investment," Discussion Paper Series DP2021-14, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
    9. Pierre Jinghong Liang & Lin Nan, 2014. "Endogenous Precision of Performance Measures and Limited Managerial Attention," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 693-727, December.
    10. Kazuya Kamiya & Meg Sato, 2011. "Multi-Period Contract Problems with Verifiable and Unverifiable Outputs," Crawford School Research Papers 1103, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    11. Sabac, Florin, 2008. "Dynamic incentives and retirement," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 172-200, September.
    12. Lindblom, Ted & Sjögren, Stefan, 2009. "Increasing goal congruence in project evaluation by introducing a strict market depreciation schedule," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 519-532, October.
    13. Meg Adachi-Sato, 2021. "Socially Responsible Investment: Ex-ante Contracting or Ex-post Bargaining?," Discussion Paper Series DP2021-20, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Feb 2023.
    14. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    15. Qintao Fan & Wei Li, 2018. "Leading indicator variables and managerial incentives in a dynamic agency setting," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1715-1753, December.
    16. Davila, Antonio & Peñalva, Fernando, 2004. "Corporate governance and the weighting of performance measures in CEO compensation," IESE Research Papers D/556, IESE Business School.
    17. Davila, Toni & Peñalva, Fernando, 2005. "Governance structure and the weighting of performance measures in CEO compensation," IESE Research Papers D/601, IESE Business School.
    18. Portilla, Yolanda, 2009. "Career concerns and investment maturity in mutual funds," UC3M Working papers. Economics we091106, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    19. Zhang, Zumeng & Ding, Liping & Wang, Chaofan & Dai, Qiyao & Shi, Yin & Zhao, Yujia & Zhu, Yuxuan, 2022. "Do operation and maintenance contracts help photovoltaic poverty alleviation power stations perform better?," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    20. Verbeeten, F.H.M., 2005. "New’ Performance Measures: Determinants of Their Use and Their Impact on Performance," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2005-054-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    21. Shane Dikolli & Igor Vaysman, 2006. "Contracting on the Stock Price and Forward-Looking Performance Measures," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 445-464.
    22. Guanming He, 2023. "How do insider trading incentives shape nonfinancial disclosures? Evidence from product and business expansion disclosures," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 147-194, January.
    23. de Aguiar, Andson Braga & Pinheiro, Paulo Natal & Oyadomari, José Carlos Tiomatsu, 2014. "How do different performance measures affect managerial time orientation? Empirical evidence from sales managers in the oil and gas industry," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 143-153.
    24. Christensen, Peter O. & Feltham, Gerald A. & Sabac, Florin, 2005. "A contracting perspective on earnings quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 265-294, June.

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