IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eurjfi/v21y2015i15p1357-1373.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk aversion, prudence, and compensation

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Chaigneau

Abstract

In a standard principal-agent setting, we use a comparative approach to study the incentives provided by different types of compensation contracts, and their valuation by managers with utility function u who are risk averse ( u ′>0) and prudent ( u ′′>0). We show that concave contracts tend to provide more incentives to risk averse managers, while convex contracts tend to be more valued by prudent managers. This is because concave contracts concentrate incentives where the marginal utility of risk averse managers is highest, while convex contracts protect against downside risk. Thus, managerial prudence can contribute to explain the prevalence of stock-options in executive compensation. However, convex contracts are not optimal when the principal is sufficiently prudent relative to the manager.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Chaigneau, 2015. "Risk aversion, prudence, and compensation," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(15), pages 1357-1373, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurjfi:v:21:y:2015:i:15:p:1357-1373
    DOI: 10.1080/1351847X.2014.954049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1351847X.2014.954049
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1351847X.2014.954049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Inés Macho-Stadler & David Pérez-Castrillo, 2018. "Moral hazard: Base models and two extensions," Chapters, in: Luis C. Corchón & Marco A. Marini (ed.), Handbook of Game Theory and Industrial Organization, Volume I, chapter 16, pages 453-485, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. François Desmoulins-Lebeault & Luc Meunier, 2018. "Moment Risks: Investment for Self and for a Firm," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 242-266, December.
    3. Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné & Sandrine Spaeter, 2016. "Incentive Contracts and Downside Risk Sharing," Working Papers of BETA 2016-22, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.

    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:taf:eurjfi:v:21:y:2015:i:15:p:1357-1373. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJF20 .

    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.