IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v23y2010i10p3812-3848.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pay (Be)for(e) Performance: The Signing Bonus as an Incentive Device

Author

Listed:
  • Edward Dickersin Van Wesep

Abstract

The signing bonus is one of the most common elements of compensation packages for white-collar employees but has received little theoretical and empirical attention. This article investigates the use of a signing bonus as a tool for firms to signal to prospective employees: when they are uncertain regarding their fit with the firm, the signing bonus can serve as a credible signal of the firm's belief of said fit. The theory suggests that we should expect signing bonuses to be more common and larger when the economy is stronger, when employees are less certain of how well they will fit at the firm, when the quality of fit (known to the firm) is higher, and when performance pay is present. Employees receiving a signing bonus work harder, so the signing bonus also serves as an incentive device. This article also presents the first broad empirical look at the use of the signing bonus across industries and time. Evidence is consistent with the theory. The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward Dickersin Van Wesep, 2010. "Pay (Be)for(e) Performance: The Signing Bonus as an Incentive Device," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(10), pages 3812-3848, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:23:y:2010:i:10:p:3812-3848
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hhq051
    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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Brian Cadman & Richard Carrizosa & Xiaoxia Peng, 2020. "Inducement grants, hiring announcements, and adverse selection for new CEOs," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 279-312, March.
    2. Jiyoon Lee, 2023. "CEO prior uncertainty and pay–performance sensitivity," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1021-1045, December.
    3. William Fuchs, 2015. "Subjective Evaluations: Discretionary Bonuses and Feedback Credibility," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 99-108, February.
    4. Edward D. Van Wesep & Brian Waters, 2022. "Bonus Season: A Theory of Periodic Labor Markets and Coordinated Bonuses," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(7), pages 5464-5492, July.
    5. Ekinci, Emre, 2019. "Discretionary bonuses and turnover," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 30-49.
    6. Dana Foarta & Takuo Sugaya, 2021. "The management of talent: Optimal contracting for selection and incentives," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 52(1), pages 49-77, March.
    7. Xu, Jin & Yang, Jun, 2016. "Golden hellos: Signing bonuses for new top executives," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 175-195.
    8. Philippe Grégoire, 2018. "Psychology at work," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 65(2), pages 119-135, June.
    9. Lu, Shih En, 2016. "Self-control and bargaining," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 390-413.

    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:oup:rfinst:v:23:y:2010:i:10:p:3812-3848. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.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.