Prior research generally concludes that compensation committees completely shield executive compensation from the effect of restructuring charges on earnings. In contrast, we find that after controlling for the growth in annual inflation-adjusted CEO cash compensation, compensation committees only partially shield CEO compensation from the adverse effect of restructuring charges on earnings, on average. In further analyses, we identify factors associated with cross-sectional differences in the extent of shielding. Specifically, we find that compensation committees appear to: (1) completely shield initial and subsequent restructuring charges for CEOs with long tenure, provided that the firm had not recorded a charge in the two immediately prior years; (2) provide no shielding of subsequent restructuring charges taken by short-tenured CEOs if the firm reported a prior restructuring charge within two years of the current charge; (3) and partially shield the other categories of restructuring charges. Overall, this study provides evidence that compensation committees evaluate the context of each restructuring in determining the extent to which they will intervene to shield executive compensation from the effect of these charges.

This study focuses on the persistence and market value implications of a subset of nonrecurring charges that are atypical due to repeated occurrence. The increased recurrence of supposedly nonrecurring items perhaps reflects managerial shifting of (more permanent) ordinary expenses to a transitory category or, alternatively, may reflect an environment where these items naturally occur more frequently. Either scenario suggests that these repetitive charges have future earnings implications dramatically different from truly nonrecurring events and should therefore be valued more like a recurring component of earnings. Consistent with this notion, we find that as the frequency of reporting negative special items increases (measured by the presence of multiple prior charges), the persistence of these items significantly increases with respect to future earnings. Our evidence also suggests that the valuation multiple on such charges increases with frequency. That is, the market values “recurring nonrecurring” items more like the other components of recurring earnings.

Burgstahler et al. (2002) investigate the implications of special items for future earnings and report that firms use negative special items to accelerate the recognition of future expenses into the current period. That is, negative special items serve as an “inter-period transfer” device. We extend their analysis and find that earnings increase in post-special item quarters beyond the four quarters considered in Burgstahler et al. (2002). In particular, we find that future earnings increase over the subsequent 16 quarters by more than 130 percent of the reported negative special item. The earnings increases are greater for restructuring charges than for asset write-downs or goodwill impairment charges. Such patterns suggest that negative special items also signal real future performance improvements (i.e., performance improvement hypothesis) in addition to inter-period expense transfer (i.e., inter-period transfer hypothesis). Moreover, the real improvement effect appears to be driven by restructuring charges, the most prevalent type of special item.