We develop a conceptual framework that links the compensation incentives of bank executives to the risk and return externalities generated by banks but borne by society. Using 1994 to 2016 data from large U.S. commercial banks, we find that CEO pay-performance incentives reduce both negative systemic risk externalities and positive liquidity creation externalities, while pay-risk incentives increase both externalities. Our findings offer support for Federal Reserve guidelines that encourage greater reliance on long-term equity-based compensation, and they infer a regulatory tradeoff: Bank executive pay rules aimed at reducing systemic risk will result in reduced system-wide liquidity creation as well.

While recent studies show that long vesting periods in managerial compensation increase corporate investments, these investments such as research and development contribute to information asymmetry and therefore may affect the maturity structure of corporate debt. We find that firms with longer CEO pay duration have shorter debt maturity, which is consistent with the notion that firms shorten debt maturity to mitigate information asymmetry. This effect is stronger for firms with larger bid-ask spread, less analyst coverage, more growth options, more volatile returns, and lower default risk and for firms in R&D intensive industries. Firms with longer CEO pay duration prefer debt issuance over equity issuance, and they also exhibit higher future investment growth and Tobin's Q. We strengthen the identification by exploiting the quasi-randomly staggered compliance of a regulatory change (FAS 123-R) and the enforceability of noncompetition agreements as exogenous shocks to CEO pay duration. Our paper shows that the duration of executive compensation affects corporate financing decisions.

Prior research shows that family control affects firm value through capital investment, debt financing, M&A activities, and governance structure. This study investigates the role of corporate culture in family firms and its implications for firm value. We use more than 100,000 surveys collected by Glassdoor between 2008 and 2012 that capture how employees perceive their company's culture. We find that employees who work for firms with active founders rate their companies higher than employees in nonfamily firms, especially if the founder runs the company. In contrast, employee satisfaction in scion firms does not differ from nonfamily firms, and when scions run the company, employees are less satisfied. Scion firms also exhibit significant lower employee satisfaction during the recent financial crisis. Furthermore, employee assessments predict subsequent firm performance measured by Tobin's q and return on assets (ROA). Our findings provide evidence that family firms exhibit a human-capital-enhancing culture that improves firm performance.

Bolton, Scheinkman, and Xiong (2006) model a setting where investors disagree and short‐sales constraints cause pessimistic views of stock prices to be less influential, which leads to speculative stock prices. A theoretical implication of the model is that existing shareholders can exploit the speculative stock prices by (i) designing managerial compensation contracts that encourage short‐term performance, and (ii) subsequently selling their shares to more optimistic investors. We document empirical support for this theory by finding that an exogenous removal (Regulation SHO) of short‐sales constraints curbs the provision of short‐term incentives, an effect reflected in longer CEO compensation duration. The effect is concentrated among stocks with high investor disagreement and short‐term‐oriented institutional ownership. Consistent with prior work, we also find that longer CEO compensation duration leads to longer CEO investment horizons, less overinvestment, and less earnings management. Collectively, our results speak to the contributing role of speculative stock prices in corporate short‐termism. Finally, our study implies that effective policies to curb corporate short‐termism should address stock market speculation and promote mechanisms that tie executive compensation to longer‐term stock price performance.

We examine the effect of technology spillovers on the duration of executive compensation contracts. We find that in the presence of greater technology spillovers, firms tend to grant longer duration compensation contracts to their executives. This finding is consistent with theoretical predictions by Manso (2011) who argues that firms should choose longer-term contracts to encourage managerial incentives for exploration. We enhance our identification by using exogenous variation in state-level R&D tax credits of peer firms to identify the effect of technology spillovers on the duration of focal firm compensation structures. We also find this effect to be stronger among younger firms and firms with more growth opportunities. Overall, our findings suggest that technology spillover has a meaningful influence on compensation contracting.