[This article studies a continuous time principal-agent problem of a firm whose cash flows are determined by the manager's unobserved effort. The firm's cash flows are further subject to persistent and publicly observable shocks that are beyond the manager's control. While standard contracting models predict that compensation should optimally filter out these shocks, empirical evidence suggests otherwise. In line with this evidence, our model predicts that the manager is "rewarded for luck."]

Abstract We analyze the interaction between financial institutions’ internal compensation policy, the quality of loans, and their securitization decision. We show when mandatory deferred bonus pay makes incentives more commensurate with the longer term risk of their transactions and hence improves the quality of loans. We also show when it has the opposite effect. We further analyze when mandatory deferred compensation can complement a policy that requires financial institutions to retain a minimum exposure to their originated loans, and we discuss the impact of a tax on short-term bonus pay. Generally, our framework allows us to study the interaction of financial institutions’ internal agency problems with the external agency problem that arises from securitization.

We study non-contractible intangible investment in a dynamic agency model with multitasking. The manager’s short-term task determines current performance, which deteriorates with investment in the firm’s future profitability, his long-term task. The optimal contract dynamically balances incentives for short- and long-term performance. Investment is distorted upwards (downwards) relative to first-best in firms with high (low) returns to investment. These distortions decrease as good performance relaxes endogenous financial constraints, implying negative (positive) investment-cash flow sensitivities. Our results shed light on how corporate investment policies, liquidity management, and executive compensation structure differ across industries with different returns to intangible investment.

This article studies a continuous time principal-agent problem of a firm whose cash flows are determined by the manager's unobserved effort. The firm's cash flows are further subject to persistent and publicly observable shocks that are beyond the manager's control. While standard contracting models predict that compensation should optimally filter out these shocks, empirical evidence suggests otherwise. In line with this evidence, our model predicts that the manager is “rewarded for luck.”