The Forgotten Risk: Financial Incentives

Summary  The number of risks that are taken into account by risk managers has grown over the years, but they still have a blind spot for the danger that remuneration schemes and financial incentives can lead to more risk taking. Such an effect constitutes a regime change, making standard statistical analyses of previous data obsolete. Common remuneration contracts for hedge fund managers and bank traders provoke risk taking and lead to volatile results. The incentive structure of rating agencies sheds doubts on the quality of their judgment. Risk managers should address the behavioral effects of incentive schemes, both inside and outside their firm. Incentive schemes should be corrected in such a way that only long-term results pay off. CEO, ABN-AMRO Bank and former Minister of Finance. These comments were prepared for the occasion of the Jelle Zijlstra Lecture by Martin Hellwig at the VU University, Amsterdam, May 27, 2008, when Gerrit Zalm was CFO of DSB Bank.     

国内上市银行薪酬制度对国有商业银行的启示

国内A股上市银行注重薪酬的激励作用,对关键性管理、技术岗位和高素质短缺人才岗位实行倾斜性分配政策。同国内上市银行相比,国有商业银行薪酬机制还没有建立起规范的岗位职级体系,工资总额核定不够科学,薪酬制度缺乏科学规范的业绩考评指标体系支持。为加强国有商业银行薪酬市场竞争力,国有商业银行应改革现行工资总额分配体系,构建以业绩为导向的考评指标体系,并建立长效分配激励机制。     

The influence of remuneration on the behavior of hospital employees in Brazil

The study aimed to analyze the employee's perception of the remuneration systems in two major hospitals in Brazil, one managed by the government and the other by private investors. The sample considered 109 respondents, out of which 54 were from the private hospital and 55 from the public hospital. After data collection on the sample population, perception of remuneration was associated with occupation, gender, age and experience, as suggested by the Upper Echelons Theory. The results show that remuneration is viewed as an instrument of control and behavior or a learning-inducing mechanism; however, the perceptions of employees working in the health area and administrative area were different. These findings show that the influence of fixed pay is different not only for the employees of both areas, but also in relation to the public and private hospital management. It was found that gender is not a determinant factor of behavior and that there were no differences between younger and older employees as well as between more experienced and less experienced employees with respect to the effect of remuneration on behavior. There were no differences in relation to the type of hospital either. In general, the results emphasize the importance of remuneration as an instrument of control and management, either in the context of public or private organizations.     

Shareholder say on pay and CEO compensation: three strikes and the board is out

From 2011 in Australia, if over 25% of shareholders vote against a non‐binding remuneration resolution, firms are awarded a ‘strike’. We examine 237 firms that receive a strike relative to matched firms, and find no association with any measure of CEO pay. However, we do find that strike firms have higher book‐to‐market and leverage ratios, suggesting that the remuneration vote is not used to target excessive pay. We also find that firms respond to a strike by decreasing the discretionary bonus component of CEO pay by 57.10% more than non‐strike firms and increasing their remuneration disclosure by 10.95%.     

Contribution-proportional remuneration rule for employee inventions and its effects on effort and investment incentives

The practice of the Japanese court in case of a dispute between the employer and employee regarding the amount of remuneration for an employee invention has been to order that the additional profit from the invention be divided proportionally to their respective input contributions. We show that, if the employer’s investment and employee’s effort are weakly complementary, this rule causes the share effect (excessive incentives on the part of each party to expend investment or effort in order to increase his/her share of the surplus) to dominate the probability effect (insufficient incentives arising from the fact that each party obtains only part of the increase in the expected surplus), and thus leads to excessive investment and effort relative to the joint-payoff-maximising levels. If the court cannot capture the employer’s investment as fully as the employee’s effort, the employer’s investment may be too low compared to the joint-payoff-maximising level.     

试析劳动者合法权益保护存在缺陷及解决方案——以《劳动合同法》的理论上的精确解读为视角

劳动者权益保护的问题既是重要法律问题,也是重要社会问题。当前,现行《劳动合同法》劳动者权益保护存在缺陷,企业裁员对劳动者权益损害严重,过渡条款适用对劳动者产生不利影响。完善《劳动合同法》对劳动者合法权益保护,应重视农民工权益的保护,提高裁员后对劳动者的经济补偿水平,加强对过渡条款适用范围限制,从劳动合同签订的主体入手,加强其法律意识,从根本上解决法律缺陷对劳动者权益带来损害。     

上市公司社会责任履行度与高管激励研究

文章从委托代理理论和社会责任领域相关理论出发,结合我国的制度背景,以2007～2008年度沪深两市A股上市公司为样本,实证检验了公司社会责任履行度在高管激励契约中的作用,并考察了公司治理因素对两者关系的影响。研究发现,上市公司的社会责任绩效越好,高管的薪酬越高。通过进一步的考察,我们发现,最终控制人为国有的上市公司,更加重视社会责任履行在高管薪酬契约中的作用;董事会持股比例越高,社会责任绩效的地位越重要;我们的证据不支持独立董事在其中发挥了作用。研究表明,实践中公司逐渐将社会责任工作融入战略和日常管理,以社会责任为导向的公司治理制度安排正在形成。     

Reducing Teacher Moral Hazard in the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Educational System through Merit-pay: An Application of the Principal–Agency Theory

America’s elementary and secondary educational system is faced with an inefficiency stemming from a basic problem associated with unobservability: moral hazard. In this case, the teacher (agent) has an incentive to exert less effort (given cost associated with more work) if the school district (principal) cannot distinguish between low student performance due to a lack of teacher effort and low student performance due low student quality (random variable). This research develops an optimal incentive scheme that guarantees the teacher a fixed payment, plus a variable payment that would be a function of teacher ‘action’ variables thereby reducing moral hazard.

The determinants of director remuneration,executive tenure and individual executive disclosure in North African IPO firms

This paper examines the impact of board governance mechanisms, namely board size, independence ratio, opacity of earnings disclosure, and ratio of genuinely independent nonexecutive directors to total board size on director remuneration, executive tenure and likelihood of individual executive salary disclosure in a unique and comprehensive sample of 69 North African IPO firms. I find evidence of the enhanced governance role of true independent nonexecutives in family as opposed to non-family firms in improving disclosure of individual salaries and moderating lengths of executive tenure. However while their role is only significant in the context of family firms the evidence suggests that their presence is associated with higher levels of remuneration. The evidence also ascribes a greater role for business angel as opposed to more formal private equity financing which is more applicable within the highly social networked economy of the Maghreb region.     

Identifying lobbying strategies: An analysis of public responses to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into executive remuneration in Australia

This study investigates lobbying behaviour over the two phases of the 2009 Productivity Commission Inquiry into executive remuneration within Australia. Consistent with expectations, behaviours appeared related to preference for change, the costs of regulatory change relative to those of lobbying, and the need for reputational capital. Industry participants, and those from the Representative and Professional bodies emerge as key opponents. Industry presented in a conciliatory manner during the first phase, revealing a preference for the status quo, but then directly targeted specific recommendations of concern, notably the ‘two strike’ and ‘no vacancy’ rules in the second phase. Respondents from the Representative and Professional Bodies were broadly and consistently supportive of change and the Inquiry’s final recommendations. We also find that these recommendations largely align with the views of the Representative Bodies, but conflict with those expressed by Industry in their second phase submissions. Finally, we find no evidence to suggest the motivation behind Industry lobbying related to poor remuneration practices.