The Impact of 'A - Day' on Executive Pensions and Pay for Performance

This paper evaluates the impact of the ‘A-day’ pensions simplification legislation introduced in the UK in 2006. This reform exogenously affected the cost of pension provision for firms whose executives had accumulated pensions benefits in excess of the prescribed limit. We find a strong reaction in the form of pension provision in a sample of UK executive directors. After A-day, many executives saw their defined benefit scheme replaced with supplementary cash payments. This had the unintended consequence of significantly decreasing the relationship between executive pay and firm performance for those executives affected by the reform

An analysis of duration of unemployment:1967-1979

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the duration of unemployment during the period 1967 - 1979 using the concept of a stationary register. The estimate of duration is obtained using U=iD where U is stock of unemployed, i is total inflows entering the pool of unemployed and D is duration of unemployment. Both ratio and regression estimates suggest that duration of unemployment has increased from 1.90 months to 4.5 months and this increase cannot be explained entirely by search-turnover views

Executive pensions and the pay–performance relation—Evidence from changes to pension legislation in the UK

This article evaluates the role of executive pensions in the relationship between executive compensation and corporate performance. As a natural experiment, we exploit a major change to the tax-free allowances governing executive pensions. This reform affected the cost of pensions for firms whose executives had accumulated pension benefits in excess of the prescribed limit. We find a strong reaction to the reform. After 6 April 2006, many executives saw their defined benefit pension schemes replaced with risk-free cash payments. This imposition of an exogenous constraint on the contracting over CEO pay significantly decreased the relationship between executive pay and firm performance

Executive Incentive Schemes in Initial Public Offerings: The Effects of Multiple-Agency Conflicts and Corporate Governance

Combining a behavioral agency perspective with research on multiple-agency conflicts, this article examines factors affecting the implementation of equity-based incentive schemes in initial public offerings (IPOs). With a unique sample of U.K. IPO companies between the years 1998 and 2002, it shows that conditional (performance-related) incentive schemes are negatively associated with share ownership and board power of the IPO’s founding directors. However, the retained ownership of venture capital firms is positively associated with the probability of conditional incentive schemes. Board independence weakly effects on the toughness of executive compensation. The article’s interesting findings suggest a number of avenues for a future analysis of the governance development process in threshold firms

Vertical Ownership, Program Network Carriage, and Tier Positioning in Cable Television: An Empirical Study

Vertical integration, Cable television, Program carriage, Program positioning,