Executive Pensions

Because public firms are not required to disclose the monetary value of pension plans in their executive pay disclosures, financial economists have generally analyzed executive pay using figures that do not include the value of such pension plans. This paper presents evidence that omitting the value of pension benefits significantly undermines the accuracy of existing estimates of executive pay, its variability, and its sensitivity to performance companies. Studying the pension arrangements of CEOs of S&P 500, we find that the CEOs' plans had a median actuarial value of $15 million; that the ratio of the executives' pension value to the executives' total compensation (including both equity and non-equity pay) during their service as CEO had a median value of 34%; and that including pension values increased the median percentage of the executives' total compensation composed of salary-like payments during and after their service as CEO from 15% to 39%.

The Unreformed Canadian House of Commons

Le Parlement évolue constamment et si l'on veut qu'il soit efficace, il faut que ses pratiques reflètent l'évolution de la société. L'auteur propose des changements dans le processus législatif la surveillance de l'exécutif, la représentation et l'organisation de la Chambre des communes car la société et l'appareil gouvernemental se développent plus rapidement que les mécanismes de cette chambre

Rethinking Retroactivity

Under the stringent test set forth in Teague v. Lane defendants convicted of criminal offenses are generally unable to collaterally attack their convictions by invoking constitutional rules of criminal procedure announced after their convictions become final.2 The purported exception to this general principle is said to require that new constitutional rule be "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty"3 for it to be applied to criminal cases decided before its pronouncement Once rule of criminal procedure is characterized as "new" Teague prohibits the rules invocation in habeas proceedings unless the rule both "assure that no man has been incarcerated under procedure which creates an impermissibly large risk that the innocent will be convicted"5 and "alter our understanding of the bedrock procedural elements that vitiate the fairness of particular conviction.