IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bofrdp/rdp2014_002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bankers' compensation: Sprint swimming in short bonus pools?

Author

Listed:
  • Jokivuolle, Esa
  • Keppo, Jussi

Abstract

The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 has given rise to new regulatory initiatives to put restrictions on the size and term of bankers' pay. We revisit the question whether these regulations are justified, both theoretically and empirically. We model bonuses as a series of sequential call options on profits and show that they provide the higher risk-taking incentives the shorter is the time between the payment points. However, using data on CEO bonuses at the end of 2006 and our model, we find no robust relationship between risk-taking incentives and US banks' stock returns during the global financial crisis. The crisis returns are related negatively to leverage and positively to the market to book equity ratio. Our findings suggest that regulating leverage would be more effective than regulating bankers' compensation.

Suggested Citation

  • Jokivuolle, Esa & Keppo, Jussi, 2014. "Bankers' compensation: Sprint swimming in short bonus pools?," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 2/2014, Bank of Finland.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofrdp:rdp2014_002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/212277/1/bof-rdp2014-002.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rogerson, William P, 1985. "The First-Order Approach to Principal-Agent Problems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1357-1367, November.
    2. David Miles & Jing Yang & Gilberto Marcheggiano, 2013. "Optimal Bank Capital," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(567), pages 1-37, March.
    3. Elijah Brewer & Julapa Jagtiani, 2013. "How Much Did Banks Pay to Become Too-Big-To-Fail and to Become Systemically Important?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 43(1), pages 1-35, February.
    4. P. Carr, 1995. "Two extensions to barrier option valuation," Applied Mathematical Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(3), pages 173-209.
    5. Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger & Stulz, René M., 2011. "Bank CEO incentives and the credit crisis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 11-26, January.
    6. Alain Durré & Pierre Giot, 2007. "An International Analysis of Earnings, Stock Prices and Bond Yields," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3‐4), pages 613-641, April.
    7. Acharya, Viral V. & Schnabl, Philipp & Suarez, Gustavo, 2013. "Securitization without risk transfer," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(3), pages 515-536.
    8. Merton, Robert C., 1971. "Optimum consumption and portfolio rules in a continuous-time model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 373-413, December.
    9. Low, Angie, 2009. "Managerial risk-taking behavior and equity-based compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 470-490, June.
    10. Myerson, Roger B., 1982. "Optimal coordination mechanisms in generalized principal-agent problems," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 67-81, June.
    11. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    12. Yuliy Sannikov, 2008. "A Continuous-Time Version of the Principal-Agent Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 957-984.
    13. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    14. Merton, Robert C, 1974. "On the Pricing of Corporate Debt: The Risk Structure of Interest Rates," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 29(2), pages 449-470, May.
    15. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1994. "The Firm as an Incentive System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 972-991, September.
    16. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1983. "An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(1), pages 7-45, January.
    17. Steven N. Kaplan & Bernadette A. Minton, 2012. "How Has CEO Turnover Changed?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 12(1), pages 57-87, March.
    18. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring.
    19. Bengt Holmström, 1999. "Managerial Incentive Problems: A Dynamic Perspective," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 169-182.
    20. S. G. Kou, 2002. "A Jump-Diffusion Model for Option Pricing," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(8), pages 1086-1101, August.
    21. Lammertjan Dam & Michael Koetter, 2012. "Bank Bailouts and Moral Hazard: Evidence from Germany," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(8), pages 2343-2380.
    22. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    23. Inderst, Roman & Mueller, Holger, 2005. "Keeping the Board in the Dark: CEO Compensation and Entrenchment," CEPR Discussion Papers 5315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    24. Oliver Hart & Luigi Zingales, 2011. "A New Capital Regulation for Large Financial Institutions," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 13(2), pages 453-490.
    25. Raghuram G. Rajan, 2005. "Has financial development made the world riskier?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 313-369.
    26. Keppo, Jussi & Kofman, Leonard & Meng, Xu, 2010. "Unintended consequences of the market risk requirement in banking regulation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2192-2214, October.
    27. Houston, Joel F. & James, Christopher, 1995. "CEO compensation and bank risk Is compensation in banking structured to promote risk taking?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 405-431, November.
    28. Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig, 2013. "The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 9929.
    29. Ioannidou, Vasso P. & Penas, María Fabiana, 2010. "Deposit insurance and bank risk-taking: Evidence from internal loan ratings," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 95-115, January.
    30. 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.
    31. Matthew Richardson, 2011. "Regulating Wall Street," Proceedings 1116, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    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. Jokivuolle, Esa & Keppo, Jussi, 2014. "Bankers' compensation: : Sprint swimming in short bonus pools?," Research Discussion Papers 2/2014, Bank of Finland.
    2. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2014_002 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:bof:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201503041096 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. repec:zbw:bofrdp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201503041096 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Jokivuolle, Esa & Keppo, Jussi & Yuan, Xuchuan, 2015. "Bonus caps, deferrals and bankers' risk-taking," Research Discussion Papers 5/2015, Bank of Finland.
    6. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_005 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Jokivuolle, Esa & Keppo, Jussi & Yuan, Xuchuan, 2015. "Bonus caps, deferrals and bankers' risk-taking," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 5/2015, Bank of Finland.
    8. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    9. Ingolf Dittmann & Ko-Chia Yu & Dan Zhang, 2017. "How Important Are Risk-Taking Incentives in Executive Compensation?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(5), pages 1805-1846.
    10. Chen, Zhongdong & Ebrahim, Alireza, 2018. "Turnover threat and CEO risk-taking behavior in the banking industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 87-105.
    11. Patricia Boyallian & Pablo Ruiz-Verdú, 2018. "Leverage, CEO Risk-Taking Incentives, and Bank Failure during the 2007–10 Financial Crisis [Endogenous matching and the empirical determinants of contract form]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(5), pages 1763-1805.
    12. Bartsch, Elga, 1996. "Enforcement of environmental liability in the case of uncertain causality and asymmetric information," Kiel Working Papers 755, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. Robert Gibbons, 2010. "Inside Organizations: Pricing, Politics, and Path Dependence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 337-365, September.
    14. Kim, Son Ku & Wang, Susheng, 1998. "Linear Contracts and the Double Moral-Hazard," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 342-378, October.
    15. repec:oup:rfinst:v:21:y:2017:i:5:p:1805-1846. is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.
    17. Correa, Ricardo & Goldberg, Linda S., 2022. "Bank complexity, governance, and risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    18. Martin Byford, 2003. "Moral Hazard From Costless Hidden Actions," Working Papers 2003.03, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    19. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Asunur Cezar & Huseyin Cavusoglu & Srinivasan Raghunathan, 2014. "Outsourcing Information Security: Contracting Issues and Security Implications," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(3), pages 638-657, March.
    21. repec:cte:wbrepe:wb1501 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Michael Waldman, 2012. "Theory and Evidence in Internal LaborMarkets [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    23. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2007. "A Calibratable Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 13372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Oindrila Dey & Swapnendu Banerjee, 2022. "Incentives, Status and Thereafter: A Critical Survey," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 11(1), pages 95-115, June.
    25. Barlo, Mehmet & Özdog˜an, Ayça, 2014. "Optimality of linearity with collusion and renegotiation," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 46-52.
    26. Victor Aguirregabiria & Margaret Slade, 2017. "Empirical models of firms and industries," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(5), pages 1445-1488, December.
    27. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.

    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:zbw:bofrdp:rdp2014_002. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bofgvfi.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.