Do Repurchases Facilitate Shareholder Exit? Evidence from CEO Pay Ratio Disclosure, with Alice Bonaimé, Amedeo De Cesari, and Konstantinos Stathopoulos
The consequences of ESG contracting, with Amedeo De Cesari and Konstantinos Stathopoulos
Outside employment opportunities and tournament incentives, with Amedeo De Cesari and Konstantinos Stathopoulos
Forthcoming at Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis
Best Paper in Employment Law, Labor Law, and Family Law, 2023 American Law and Economics Association Annual Meeting
We find that firms enlarge the executive pay gap when executive mobility is constrained by more enforceable non-compete agreements. We interpret this finding as evidence that firms increase tournament incentives to keep executives incentivized after the loss of valuable outside employment options. Consistent with this argument, we observe more significant increases in pay gaps for executives with greater ex ante mobility options. However, shocks reducing enforceability have a weaker, less robust impact on pay gaps, contributing to asymmetric effects. Following restrictions to mobility, equity portfolios that long (short) firms that boost (do not boost) executive pay gaps generate positive alphas.