The effect of price targets on the composition of CEO pay

This article analyzes the impact of price targets from the IBES Detail Price History Target database on CEO compensation retained from Execucomp. The two databases are merged at fiscal year frequency and an OLS regression with fixed effect is used to analyze the impact of price target on CEO compensation. The analysis reveals that analysts’ price targets affect top executives’ compensation: when analysts predict a growth in the share price for a company, the compensation package tilts towards stock options, when analysts forecast a drop in the share price, the compensation package tilts towards cash-based compensation and restricted stocks. I argue that the result is more aligned with the managerial power model of compensation (which assumes the board of directors maximizes managers’ compensation) than with the arm’s length bargaining model (that states that managers’ compensation is set to maximize shareholders’ profit).     

Willingness to pay and the demand for lotto

The way that unemployment duration affects employment prospects, is investigated using Norwegian micro transition data encompassing detailed accounts of 14 807 unemployed adults. A generalized non-proportional Weibull model is estimated, with two possible exits from the unemployment pool: a job or a labour force exit. On average the probability of obtaining a job is fairly constant at the individual level, while the probability of exiting the labour force increases significantly as unemployment duration is prolonged. For some particular groups of unemployed, there is also a marked negative duration dependence in the probability of obtaining a job.     

Comorbidities and the willingness to pay for health improvements

We show that the willingness to pay for health improvements increases with the severity and probability of occurrence of comorbidities. This result, which is obtained under mild restrictions on the shape of the utility function, has important implications for cost benefit studies applied to health care. In particular it implies that the discrimination of the elderly, believed to be implicit in cost benefit analysis, is less of a problem than commonly thought.     

On the willingness to pay to reduce risks of small losses

While willingness to pay is a common concept to measure the benefit gained from a reduction in the probability of loss, it is still questionable how it is linked to risk aversion and risk elimination behaviors, and how it is affected by the presence of an exogenous source of risk. By focusing only on risks of small losses, this article sheds light on these three issues and provides new results on the determinants of the willingness to pay.