A classroom exercise on executive incentive compensation schemes

This paper describes a classroom exercise that has been used in several graduate courses. The exercise provides the students with a framework for understanding the rationale behind some of the mechanisms we observe in reality: incentive compensation plans for executives, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), auditing, and lawsuits against auditors. As such, the exercise provides some answers for several questions of ‘why’ before getting into the ‘how’ of reporting. The case can be used in courses dealing with financial accounting, managerial control and microeconomics in the MBA level.