IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hbs/wpaper/16-076.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Executive Compensation and Environmental Harm

Author

Listed:
  • Dylan Minor

    (Harvard Business School, Strategy Unit)

Abstract

We explore the relationship between managerial incentives and environmental harm. We find that high-powered executive compensation packages can increase the odds of environmental law-breaking by 40-60% and the magnitude of environmental harm by over 100%. We document similar results for the setting of executive compensation and financial accounting misconduct. Finally, we outline some managerial and policy implications to blunt these adverse incentive effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Dylan Minor, 2016. "Executive Compensation and Environmental Harm," Harvard Business School Working Papers 16-076, Harvard Business School, revised Apr 2016.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbs:wpaper:16-076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/pages/download.aspx?name=16-076.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ohad Kadan, 2008. "Stocks or Options? Moral Hazard, Firm Viability, and the Design of Compensation Contracts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 21(1), pages 451-482, January.
    2. Marie-Aude Laguna & Gunther Capelle-Blancard, 2010. "How does the stock market respond to petrochemical disasters?," Post-Print halshs-00696984, HAL.
    3. Shameek Konar & Mark A. Cohen, 2001. "Does The Market Value Environmental Performance?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 281-289, May.
    4. Alex Edmans & Qi Liu, 2011. "Inside Debt," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(1), pages 75-102.
    5. Low, Angie, 2009. "Managerial risk-taking behavior and equity-based compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 470-490, June.
    6. Henri Servaes & Ane Tamayo, 2013. "The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Firm Value: The Role of Customer Awareness," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(5), pages 1045-1061, May.
    7. Capelle-Blancard, Gunther & Laguna, Marie-Aude, 2010. "How does the stock market respond to chemical disasters?," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 192-205, March.
    8. Goergen, Marc & Renneboog, Luc, 2011. "Managerial compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1068-1077, September.
    9. Aaron K. Chatterji & David I. Levine & Michael W. Toffel, 2009. "How Well Do Social Ratings Actually Measure Corporate Social Responsibility?," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(1), pages 125-169, March.
    10. Murphy, Kevin J., 1999. "Executive compensation," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 38, pages 2485-2563, Elsevier.
    11. Christopher S. Armstrong & Alan D. Jagolinzer & David F. Larcker, 2010. "Chief Executive Officer Equity Incentives and Accounting Irregularities," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(2), pages 225-271, May.
    12. Burns, Natasha & Kedia, Simi, 2006. "The impact of performance-based compensation on misreporting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 35-67, January.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/3187 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Kanagaretnam, Kiridaran & Sarkar, Sudipto, 2011. "Managerial compensation and the underinvestment problem," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 308-315.
    15. 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.
    16. Todd A. Gormley & David A. Matsa, 2014. "Common Errors: How to (and Not to) Control for Unobserved Heterogeneity," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(2), pages 617-661.
    17. Karpoff, Jonathan M & Lott, John R, Jr & Wehrly, Eric W, 2005. "The Reputational Penalties for Environmental Violations: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 653-675, October.
    18. Rajgopal, Shivaram & Shevlin, Terry, 2002. "Empirical evidence on the relation between stock option compensation and risk taking," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 145-171, June.
    19. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2006. "Managerial incentives and risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 431-468, February.
    20. Goergen, Marc & Renneboog, Luc, 2011. "Introduction to the special issue on managerial compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1065-1067, September.
    21. Glen Dowell & Stuart Hart & Bernard Yeung, 2000. "Do Corporate Global Environmental Standards Create or Destroy Market Value?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(8), pages 1059-1074, August.
    22. Hayes, Rachel M. & Lemmon, Michael & Qiu, Mingming, 2012. "Stock options and managerial incentives for risk taking: Evidence from FAS 123R," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 174-190.
    23. Michael Housman & Dylan Minor, 2015. "Toxic Workers," Harvard Business School Working Papers 16-057, Harvard Business School, revised Nov 2015.
    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. Baixauli-Soler, J. Samuel & Belda-Ruiz, Maria & Sanchez-Marin, Gregorio, 2015. "Executive stock options, gender diversity in the top management team, and firm risk taking," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 451-463.
    2. Krüger, Philipp, 2015. "Corporate goodness and shareholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 304-329.
    3. J. Samuel Baixauli-Soler & Maria Belda-Ruiz & Gregorio Sanchez-Marin, 2017. "An executive hierarchy analysis of stock options: Does gender matter?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 737-766, October.
    4. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Hunter, Delroy M. & Zhu, Yun, 2017. "Do managerial risk-taking incentives influence firms' exchange rate exposure?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 154-169.
    5. Kim, Jeong-Bon & Li, Yinghua & Zhang, Liandong, 2011. "CFOs versus CEOs: Equity incentives and crashes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(3), pages 713-730, September.
    6. Niklas Kreilkamp & Sascha Matanovic & Maximilian Schmidt & Arnt Wöhrmann, 2023. "How executive incentive design affects risk-taking: a literature review," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(7), pages 2349-2374, October.
    7. Erik Devos & William B. Elliott & Richard S. Warr, 2018. "The Propensity to Split and CEO Compensation," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 47(1), pages 105-129, March.
    8. Ellul, Andrew & WANG, Cong & Zhang, Kuo, 2016. "Labor Unemployment Risk and CEO Incentive Compensation," CEPR Discussion Papers 11634, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Hunter, Delroy M. & Zhu, Yun, 2017. "Do managerial risk-taking incentives influence firms' exchange rate exposure?," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 16/2017, Bank of Finland.
    10. Cassell, Cory A. & Huang, Shawn X. & Manuel Sanchez, Juan & Stuart, Michael D., 2012. "Seeking safety: The relation between CEO inside debt holdings and the riskiness of firm investment and financial policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 588-610.
    11. Chakraborty, Atreya & Gao, Lucia Silva & Sheikh, Shahbaz, 2019. "Managerial risk taking incentives, corporate social responsibility and firm risk," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 58-72.
    12. Boubaker, Sabri & Chebbi, Kaouther & Grira, Jocelyn, 2020. "Top management inside debt and corporate social responsibility? Evidence from the US," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 98-115.
    13. Hong, Jieying, 2019. "Managerial compensation incentives and corporate debt maturity: Evidence from FAS 123R," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 388-414.
    14. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    15. Han, Feng & Qin, Qi & Peabody, S. Drew, 2022. "Does incentive conflict between CEOs and CFOs benefit firms? Implications for corporate decision-making," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Gormley, Todd A. & Matsa, David A. & Milbourn, Todd, 2013. "CEO compensation and corporate risk: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 79-101.
    17. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2017_016 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Liu, Claire & Masulis, Ronald W. & Stanfield, Jared, 2021. "Why CEO option compensation can be a bad option for shareholders: Evidence from major customer relationships," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(1), pages 453-481.
    19. Ann-Christine Schulz & Miriam Flickinger, 2020. "Does CEO (over)compensation influence corporate reputation?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 903-927, August.
    20. Banerjee, Rajabrata & Gupta, Kartick, 2017. "The effects of environmental sustainability and R&D on corporate risk-taking: International evidence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 1-15.
    21. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    executive compensation; corporate governance; misconduct; environmental performance; accounting scandal; sustainable finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • K32 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law

    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:hbs:wpaper:16-076. 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: HBS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/harbsus.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.