Pro-Work Policy Proposals for Older Americans in the 21st Century

Reports that the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted sometime in the early part of the next century reinforce the need to make retirement policy in the United States more accommodating for those who want to work. While there is general agreement that disincentives to work at older ages in both Social Security and employer pension plans played an important role in the dramatic drop in retirement age from 1945 through 1985, skepticism exists over the ability of policy changes to both stop this trend and increase work at older ages. In this policy brief we summarize how government policy has influenced retirement since the end of World War II, show that reductions in some of the anti-work aspects of our retirement system in the 1980s appear to have ended the trend toward earlier and earlier retirement, and offer five pro-work policies which would increase work for twenty-first century older Americans

Us knows us in the UK: On director networks and CEO compensation

We analyze the relation between CEO compensation and networks of executive and non-executive directors for all listed UK companies over the period 1996-2007. We examine whether networks are built for reasons of information gathering or for the accumulation of managerial influence. Both indirect networks (enabling directors to collect information) and direct networks (leading to more managerial influence) enable the CEO to obtain higher compensation. Direct networks can harm the efficiency of the remuneration contracting in the sense that the performance sensitivity of compensation is then lower. We find that in companies with strong networks and hence busy boards the directors' monitoring effectiveness is reduced which leads to higher and less performance-sensitive CEO compensation. Our results suggest that it is important to have the 'right' type of network: some networks enable a firm to access valuable information whereas others can lead to strong managerial influence that may come at the detriment of the firm and its shareholders. We confirm that there are marked conflicts of interest when a CEO increases his influence by being a member of board committees (such as the remuneration committee) as we observe that his or her compensation is then significantly higher. We also find that hiring remuneration consultants with sizeable client networks also leads to higher CEO compensation especially for larger firms. © 2011 Elsevier B.V

Mr. Love's motion. December 19th, 1810. Read, and ordered to lie on the table. Washington City: Printed by R. C. Weightman, 1801.

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