Executive pay and performance: did bankers’ bonuses cause the crisis?

This paper examines the pay-performance relationship between executive cash compensation (including bonuses) and company performance for a sample of large UK companies, focusing particularly on the financial services industry, since incentive misalignment has been blamed as one of the factors causing the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. Although we find that pay in the financial services sector is high, the cash-plus-bonus pay-performance sensitivity of financial firms is not significantly higher than in other sectors. Consequently, we conclude that it unlikely that incentive structures could be held responsible for inducing bank executives to focus on short-term results

(WP 2011-01) It Takes Two: The Incidence and Effectiveness of co-CEOs

This study examines the phenomenon of co-CEOs within publicly traded firms. Although shared executive leadership is not widespread, it occurs within some very prominent firms. We find that co-CEOs generally complement each other in terms of educational background or executive responsibilities. Our results show that firms most likely to appoint co-CEOs have lower leverage, a more limited firm focus, less independent board structure, fewer advising directors, lower institutional ownership and greater levels of merger activity. The governance structure of co-CEO firms suggest that co-CEOships can serve as an alternative governance mechanism, with co-CEO mutual monitoring substituting for board or external monitoring and co-CEO complementary skills substituting for board advising. An event study indicates that the market reacts positively to appointments of co-CEOs while a propensity score analysis shows that the presence of co-CEOs increases firm valuation

Reverse production effect: Children recognize novel words better when they are heard rather than produced

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Tania S. Zamuner, Stephanie Strahm, Elizabeth Morin-Lessard, and Michael P. A. Page, 'Reverse production effect: children recognize novel words better when they are heard rather than produced', Developmental Science, which has been published in final form at DOI 10.1111/desc.12636. Under embargo until 15 November 2018. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.This research investigates the effect of production on 4.5- to 6-year-old children’s recognition of newly learned words. In Experiment 1, children were taught four novel words in a produced or heard training condition during a brief training phase. In Experiment 2, children were taught eight novel words, and this time training condition was in a blocked design. Immediately after training, children were tested on their recognition of the trained novel words using a preferential looking paradigm. In both experiments, children recognized novel words that were produced and heard during training, but demonstrated better recognition for items that were heard. These findings are opposite to previous results reported in the literature with adults and children. Our results show that benefits of speech production for word learning are dependent on factors such as task complexity and the developmental stage of the learner.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Corporate boards, ownership structure and firm performance in an environment of severe political and economic crisis

This study examines the relationship between board and ownership structures and firm performance in an environment of severe political and economic crisis. Using panel data from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) for the period 2000-2005, we split the period into prepresidential election period (2000-2002) (a relatively stable political and economic period) and post-presidential election period (2003-2005) (a hostile political and economic period) to capture the differences in the political and economic landscape. We find that board size, ownership concentration and executive directors’ share ownership increased whilst the proportion of nonexecutive directors reduced in the post-presidential election period. Employing a system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach, we find that performance is positively related to board size and ownership concentration in the post- (but not in the pre-) presidential election period. The results also show that performance is negatively related to executive directors’ share ownership in the post-presidential election period, but positively related in the pre-presidential election period. The proportion of non-executive directors is negative and significant in both periods. These findings support the notion that the effects of board and ownership structures depend on the nature of the firm’s environment, and therefore have important implications for policy-makers

Does Board Independence Reduce the Cost of Debt?

Using the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the associated change in listing standards as a natural experiment, we find that while board independence decreases the cost of debt when credit conditions are strong or leverage low, it increases the cost of debt when credit conditions are poor or leverage high. We also document that independent directors set corporate policies that increase firm risk. These results suggest that, acting in the interest of shareholders, independent directors are increasingly costly to bondholders with the intensification of the agency conflict between these two stakeholders

Supporting learning beyond the classroom: developing the Northumbria Learner Support Model

Academic Libraries traditionally offered support for a variety of information related queries. As the storage and delivery of information changed, libraries increasingly became involved in supporting students to use the new technologies and the widening focus of Higher Education to encompass the development of skills for life, added another new dimension. It was no longer enough simply to provide students with an answer but rather to support them to develop the skills to enable them to find answers themselves. The impact of the widening participation agenda meant that different levels and methods of support were required as standard and often over a 24x7 period. The deficit support model began to give way to a more holistic, collaborative view of student support within libraries and learning styles/ help seeking behaviours began to be taken into account (Weaver 2008). The ‘Learner Support Model’ was introduced by Library and Learning Services in 2004/5 as part of an overall strategy to enhance student learning, retention, performance and achievement. All students do not automatically have effective research, IT or study skills but those who do develop those skills will make increased use of high quality information sources, are liable to return better academic performances and are therefore more likely to complete their programmes. The generic nature of the support model ensures that students can access support wherever they are; in whatever discipline area they are working and at whatever time they need it. In the four years since the model was implemented it has moved from a theoretical ideal to a well subscribed support service handling around 90,000 enquiries per year. The Learner Support Model has been showcased at conferences, evaluated through feedback and now developed to a position where it can be extended to other services and student facing academic support areas of Northumbria University and beyond