Search

Monthly Income Preferred Stock (MIPS), Quarterly Income Preferred Stock (QUIPS), and Trust Originated Preferred Stock (TOPrS) all carry the title of preferred stock. As in the case of other forms of preferred stock, investors cannot force the issuer into bankruptcy if it fails to make a scheduled dividend payment. Unlike conventional preferred stock, however, the dividend payments on these new securities are deductible by the issuer for tax purposes. Thus MIPS, QUIPS and TOPrS appear to provide issuers with in some respects the ideal security–one that offers the tax advantages of debt without the potential for financial distress and its associated costs. And since the first issue of this kind of security in 1993, nearly 300 corporate issuers have raised a total of close to $30 billion with this novel hybrid security. But if these securities appear new, there is another security–namely, income bonds–that has offered these same advantages for at least the past 100 years. After discussing MIPS, QUIPS, and TOPrS in some detail, and the stock market's reaction issuing companies, the article explores the question: Why are tax-deductible preferreds so popular today when income bonds have been shunned for the past 60 years?

CEO pay has gone through remarkable changes over the past two decades. The most striking new features have been the increased use of stock options in the early 2000s, and of restricted stock since then. Both forms of stock-based compensation are intended to resolve the agency problem that occurs when CEOs do not act in the best interests of stockholders, but each has its advantages and limitations. In this instalment of Organizational Performance, we discuss the history of their use and similarities and differences between the two, and argue that both are often overused. Bonuses based on strategic goals, on the other hand, may be underused. We conclude with a contextual approach to guide boards of directors in making choices among the forms of CEO compensation—stock options, restricted stock, salary, and bonus—to incentivize CEOs to work toward maximizing organizational performance. Briefly, stock options are most appropriate for growth firms, and restricted stock for stable firms. Both forms of stock-based compensation are more appropriate for new than for long-tenured CEOs.

Green innovation can assist firms in achieving corporate social responsibility legitimacy among their stakeholders. However, we have limited knowledge about how to encourage firms toward it. Using a sample of Chinese firms, we examine the effect of executive equity incentive plans (EEIPs) on green innovation. Our baseline results indicate that EEIPs promote firms' green innovation and the importance of green patents in their patent portfolio. This positive effect is mainly exists in restricted stocks, rather than stock options. After addressing potential endogeneity problems by adopting instrumental variable regression method, difference-in-differences method and an entropy-balanced sample research design, we find a causal effect of EEIPs on green innovation. This positive effect is pronounced in firms facing greater environmental risks. Further analysis suggests that green innovation helps in promoting the firm's environmental outcomes, without an adverse effect on performance.

The use of restricted stock to supplement compensation or to give a bonus to executives is on the rise. Research finds that private company employees are less likely to whistleblow than public company employees. Further, restricted stock may positively influence whistleblowing when large financial rewards are present, and vesting period and strike price influence whistleblowing for those with stock option compensation. Yet, there is limited investigation of whistleblowing related to the vesting period of the restricted stock and the type of organization granting this compensation. We find evidence of a significant interaction effect. For those in public companies, whistleblowing tends to increase with a longer vesting period, whereas those in private companies have the opposite behavior, as whistleblowing increases with shorter vesting periods of the restricted stock compensation. The lens of agency theory focused on whistleblowing theory helps resolve this seeming juxtaposition. Implications for practice and policy are offered.

Although there is relevant evidence in some restricted stock studies that can be helpful for marketability discount determinations, comparisons with average discount observations from these studies do not provide a meaningful methodology to estimate marketability discounts. We conclude this despite the fact that too many valuation analysts continue to rely on simplistic comparisons with averages of restricted stock discounts from dated studies in their marketability discount determinations.

We examine a continuous-time principal-agent problem under mean-volatility joint ambiguity uncertainties. Both the principal and the agent exhibit Gilboa–Schmeidler’s extreme ambiguity aversion with exponential utilities. We distinguish between expost realized and exante perceived volatilities, and argue that the second-best contract necessarily consists of two sharing rules: one for realized outcome and the other for realized volatility. The outcome-sharing rule is for uncertainty sharing and work incentives, as usual, and the volatility-sharing rule is to align the agent’s worst prior with that of the principal. At optimum, their worst priors are symmetrized, and realized compensation is positively related to realized volatility. This theoretical positive relation can be consistent with popular managerial compensation practices such as restricted stock plus stock option grants. A closed-form solution to a linear-quadratic example is provided.

We exploit the randomized assignment of lottery prizes in a large administrative Swedish data set to estimate the causal effect of wealth on stock market participation. A $150,000 windfall gain increases the stock market participation probability by 12 percentage points among prelottery nonparticipants but has no discernible effect on prelottery stock owners. A structural life cycle model significantly overpredicts entry rates even for very high entry costs (up to $31,000). Additional analyses implicate pessimistic beliefs regarding equity returns as a major source of this overprediction and suggest that both recent and early-life return realizations affect beliefs.

PurposeThis study investigates whether listed firms using equity incentive plans (EIPs) adopt more conservative accounting in China's unique corporate setting.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of 2,243 listed firms and 9,950 firm-year observations for the period of 2008–2017, this study employs piecewise cross-sectional regression models with year and industry fixed effects to examine the associations proposed in the research hypotheses.FindingsThis study finds a positive relationship between the adoption of EIPs and accounting conservatism in listed Chinese firms. Further analyses reveal that this positive relationship is more pronounced when listed Chinese firms use restricted stock units (RSUs), instead of stock options, in their EIPs.Research limitations/implicationsUnlike many early studies, this paper empirically investigates the impacts of two different types of equity incentives – stock options and RSUs – and thus contributes to accounting and corporate governance literature by providing a better understanding of the impacts of different types of equity incentives on financial reporting quality. However, this study does not consider other alternative equity incentive measurements because of the limited data regarding Chinese firm's executive compensation.Practical implicationsThis study offers investors and policymakers in China some insight into how accounting conservatism in listed firms might be shaped by equity incentives used in their managerial compensation schemes.Originality/valueThis study is one of the few that examines the effects of using equity incentives in a large emerging market. It offers support for the view that the recent introduction of policies on EIPs by the Chinese government has an overall positive impact on listed firm's financial reporting quality, as reflected by greater degrees of accounting conservatism.

This study examines whether non-financial performance measures (NFPMs) included in CEO bonus contracts are complementary to equity-based compensation, and whether they jointly explain future firm value. We predict that in a performance evaluation system, NFPMs integrated into CEO bonus contracts complement the use of equity-based compensation, and that they are jointly and positively associated with firms’ long-term value. Consistent with our predictions, we find that the inclusion of NFPMs in bonus contracts is positively associated with the relative importance of equity-based compensation (especially in the form of restricted stocks), indicating a complementary relationship between NFPMs and equity-based compensation. We also show that equity-based compensation is marginally associated with higher future firm value when the firm uses NFPMs in its CEOs’ bonus contracts. Overall, our findings suggest that equity-based compensation is more effective in aligning managerial efforts and actions with firms’ long-term value when firms include NFPMs in CEO bonus contracts.

Under short-sales restrictions, we document a phenomenon where the market reacts again to publicly available adverse information, to which it has already responded before. We employ a Japanese dataset endowed with distinctive regulatory features pertaining to trading restrictions for a specific subset of stocks. Japanese SEOs also have unique regulatory aspects. Specifically, a Japanese SEO’s issue date, by regulation, is a minimum of five trading days from its pricing date. We posit that when an SEO is announced for short-sales restricted stocks, pessimistic investors are initially kept at abeyance and restricted from responding freely until the issue date, to the offering-related adverse information. The price reaction on the issue date, is to the now stale information to which the market has already reacted at its announcement. The phenomenon is attributable to a delayed reaction to publicly available information for short-sales restricted stocks, manifested only when additional shares are introduced.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine whether chief executive officers’ (CEOs’) stock-based compensation has any relationship with disclosure of high proprietary information. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on agency and proprietary cost theory, this study examines whether compensating CEOs based on equity value through the grants of stock option and restricted stock will affect different firms with high proprietary costs versus general costs of disclosures. The authors further explore the cross-sectional variation on the relationship between stock-based compensation and disclosures of high proprietary cost information. In particular, the authors examine certain circumstances under which stock-based compensation has a stronger effect in discouraging managers to make disclosures of product-related information. This study conducts an empirical investigation on the relationship by using hand-collected data on the product-related disclosures of biotechnology firms and by developing new disclosure indices to capture the product developments in the preclinical and clinical stages. Findings The authors find that on average, managers’ stock-based compensation does not have any significant relationship with the proxy of high proprietary disclosure index. More importantly, the authors find that managers with more equity-based compensation (in the total pay) make fewer disclosures of high proprietary cost information when they have a stronger need to protect such information. Specifically, the authors find a negative relationship between equity-based compensation and managers’ disclosure of high proprietary cost information when their firms’ product development is in early stage, when the corporate board mainly consists of directors with lack of sufficient knowledge on technology, and when firms are a leader in an industry in terms of market share. Research limitations/implications The authors acknowledge two limitations of the current study. First, the authors cannot completely rule out the possibility that the results are still subject to endogeneity issues such as reverse causality or omitted correlated variables even though the authors control for other important variables that affect disclosures and granting of stock-based compensation (including firm size, leverage, analyst following, institutional ownership and corporate governance) and use the lagged variable of stock-based compensation in the regression model. Second, given that the authors examine a small sample (only 10 per cent of firms in the biotechnology industry) due to the required hand-collection of product-related information, the generalizability of the results may be limited. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature in two important ways. First, the findings can add to the literature on the effect of stock-based compensation on managers’ disclosures. While previous studies suggest that compensating via stock options and restricted stocks can incentivize managers in enhancing firm disclosures in general (e.g. Nagar et al., 2003), the authors provide evidence suggesting that it may not always be the case. When disclosing information involves high proprietary cost, stock-based compensation can sometimes motivate managers not to reveal information. The study also complements Erkens (2011), who finds that firms offer stock-based compensation to their managers as an attempt to prevent the leakage of research and development (R&D)-related information to competitors. Second, the study can contribute to the extant literature that examines the importance of proprietary costs on firms’ disclosure decisions. The authors attempt to respond to the call for more research in this area (Beyer et al., 2010) by focusing on one specific industry, the biotech industry and by using a novel proxy for the proprietary costs based on the stage of product development for a drug-related product in that industry. As it has been challenging for researchers to properly measure proprietary costs of disclosures, the setting of the biotech industry provides a particularly strong empirical identification to potentially pinpoint the proprietary costs.

Performance shares, or PSUs, have become the largest element of pay for top executives in corporate America. Their spread was ignited by institutional investors looking for more “shareholder‐friendly” equity awards—as opposed to restricted stock and stock options, which have been characterized as “non‐performance” equity. Although that characterization has been challenged by many directors and compensation professionals, proxy advisers like Institutional Shareholder Services have continued to insist that the majority of stock be granted based on performance, compelling public companies to conform to that standard. With over a decade of experience with PSUs, the evidence is in regarding their net effect:. Given these findings on PSUs, it is time for institutional investors and their proxy advisors to reconsider their view of these vehicles as “shareholder‐friendly,” and rethink their unqualified promotion of their use by the companies they invest in.

In this paper, we focus on the pricing issue of four types of executive stock options (ESOs) in the Heston–Nandi generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity option pricing model. Based on the derived benchmark strike prices in the proposed framework, we obtain the closed‐form pricing formulae for four types of ESOs. In the numerical part, we investigate the sensitivity and cost efficiency of ESOs and suggest that systematic risk (stock β) and the fraction of wealth invested in restricted stock could impede the cost efficiency of ESOs.

Using unique data on employee ownership plans, we find that negative shocks lead to changes in portfolio choices among previously inattentive investors. Employees within employee ownership plans did not actively select into ownership, but instead received grants upon employment. Many employees remain initially passive within these plans. However, following the 2008 Financial Crisis, they become more likely to exercise options, sell restricted stock, and participate in an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP). These changes likely improve welfare. For example, nonparticipation in an ESPP leaves money on the table. Our results improve our understanding of how investors’ personal return experiences affect investment choices. Negative shocks can increase attention among previously passive investors, yielding decisions that are closer to the optimum.

I show that households’ demand for retail deposits decreases during stock market booms, which induces a contraction in bank lending and a decrease in real activity in bank-dependent firms. I identify this channel using geographic heterogeneity in households’ stock market participation. Banks in areas with greater stock ownership see a greater reduction in deposit growth when stock returns are high. This holds even across branches of the same bank and across ZIP codes within counties. Counties served by banks financed by more stock-active depositors see a greater decline in bank lending and bank-dependent-firm employment following high stock returns.

Scholars have long studied drivers of entrepreneurial behavior among established firms. Yet little is known about how individual factors shape a firm’s choice to pursue entrepreneurship. We draw on behavioral agency theory to explore the role of equity incentives in driving corporate entrepreneurship. Our findings suggest CEOs avoid corporate entrepreneurial behaviors as their option wealth increases. However industry dynamics also prove to be an important contingency when predicting the effects of both restricted stock and stock options on the likelihood that the CEO engages in corporate entrepreneurship. Our findings provide a theoretical platform for predicting dimensions of entrepreneurial behavior and highlight effects of CEO equity ownership.

The motion dynamics of humans in crowded built environments during evacuations are impacted by individuals’ interactions with the physical environment particularly when the geometric space of the movement is restrictive. Controlled laboratory experiments have recently been employed as a reliable data provision approach in this field. Using this approach and based on data obtained from 54 experimental scenarios, this study investigates a range of questions in relation to the collective motion of pedestrian crowds in restricted shares spaces. This includes the role of the layout of the spatial constraints as well as the influence of the movement speed level in the evacuation performance of pedestrian facilities. We explored these questions particularly for dense crowds and based on both micro-scale and macro-scale measures of pedestrian traffic. Our analyses showed that traffic efficiency is demonstrably sensitive to the physical features of the merging passages as well as the desired speed level of the crowd. The patterns of influence of the geometric constraints on traffic efficiency were by and large common across all three speed regimes that we examined. Our results also showed that under specific geometric constraints, the formation of blockages (i.e., longer queue or longer time interval between the passage of two consecutive pedestrians) is more likely. An inspection of the trajectory patterns revealed that this could be attributable to the extent to which the two flows had to mix up with each other in order to be able to merge and share the space. Certain layouts, particularly symmetric layouts, allowed the two flows to keep their separate ways after the entered the shared space, whereas other setups engendered a more noticeable mixture of movement trajectories in order for the two flows to be able to travel through the shared area. The findings have applications for the design of safe passageways when dense crowd flows enter restrictive areas.

The business corporation is the central economic institution in a modern economy. A company’s senior executives, with the advice and support of the board of directors, are responsible for the allocation of corporate resources to investments in productive capabilities. Senior executives also advise the board on the extent to which, given the need to invest in productive capabilities, the company can afford to make cash distributions to shareholders. Motivating corporate resource-allocation decisions are the modes of remuneration that incentivize and reward the top executives of these companies. A sound analysis of the operation and performance of a modern economy requires an understanding of not only how much these executives are paid but also the ways in which the prevailing system of executive pay influences their decisions to allocate corporate resources. In the United States since the last half of the 1980s the overriding goal of U.S. corporations has been to “maximize shareholder value,” with corporate performance measured by a company’s “total shareholder return”: percentage stock-price appreciation plus dividend yield. Also since the 1980s, the most important components of the total compensation of senior executives have been modes of stock-based pay in the forms of stock options and stock awards. This stock-based pay is structured to incentivize executives to make corporate allocation decisions that will boost the stock prices of the companies that employ them and reward them for achieving that objective. There are three drivers of stock prices: innovation, speculation, and manipulation. The first critical question that this paper addresses is which of these drivers, individually or in combination, contribute to a company’s stock-price performance. Then we can ask the second critical question: Does executive compensation reflect the success of the company in value creation, or the power of senior executives to engage in value extraction? The “value extracting CEO” hypothesis posits that, in the United States, a significant portion of senior executive compensation rewards them for making decisions that foment speculation and manipulate stock prices, and thereby extract value for their own personal gain. In section four of the paper, I invoke the theory of innovative enterprise to support this hypothesis and debunk the dominant ideology that companies should be run to “maximize shareholder value.” Finally, I elaborate the policy implications for controlling the power of the value extracting CEO, including a) banning stock buybacks, b) requiring executive compensation that rewards innovation rather than speculation and manipulation, and c) placing stakeholders representing households as taxpayers, workers, and consumers on boards of directors of publicly listed companies, along with shareholders who represent households as savers. An intellectual precondition for these reforms is the rejection of the ideology that companies should be run to maximize shareholder value, which means replacing agency theory with innovation theory as a mode of analyzing how the operation of an economy, supported by the strategies and structures of the business enterprises within it, can attain the objectives of stable and equitable economic growth.

Considering specific contextual differences (in laws, governance attributes, and CEO pay policies) found between the Anglo‐American and the European corporate governance models and controlling for institutional attributes, ownership structures, and firm's features characterizing the two settings, we aim to explore if there is a link between CEO pay slice (CPS) and corporate social responsibility (CSR). We follow Bebchuk et al. () to measure CPS. We consider sustainability indicators as proxy to capture CSR. Sustainability indicators are gathered from Global Reporting Initiative of sustainability standards (GRI's) report. Data cover the period 2010–2017 and consist of 1,440 U.S.–Canadian and Spanish–French firm‐year observations. American and Canadian (Spanish and French) firms are considered as to refer to the Anglo‐American (European) corporate governance model. Durbin–Wu–Hausman test is ruled to address endogeneity problem of dual variables and supports consistent null hypotheses of fixed effects model. Under the agency theory's “bright side” paradigm, univariate and multivariate cross‐country analysis supports that CPS is positively associated with firm's initiatives to engage in CSR and that sustainability is more pronounced under stronger investor protection, strict law enforcement, and higher corporate governance quality. Robustness checks reveal that (a) the deferred CPS–CSR causal effect seems higher for option‐based compensation than that for stock‐based compensation and (b) within the options (stocks) rewards, unvested options (restricted stocks) are the most effective to enhance firm's CSR practices.

As a long-term incentive system, the restricted stock incentive plan can effectively alleviate the problems caused by the separation of the company’s operating rights and management rights. It can also help retain core talents and promote the company’s long-term development. However, due to information asymmetry, the restrictive stock incentive plan will also prompt managers to adjust the company's financial surplus so that the specified performance targets can be used for personal gain. This study focuses on the relationship between restricted stock plan and earnings management, and studies the data of a case company to confirm that the incentive system of restricted stock stimulates earnings management, help to supervise and improve the earnings management behavior of enterprises.

Restricted stock awards carry upside and downside risks for CEOs. We follow a socio-cognitive perspective by suggesting that awards of restricted stock are viewed as potential gains or potential losses depending on each CEO's dominant regulatory focus. Regulatory focus, therefore, helps determine how a CEO responds to restricted stock awards. We also propose that the moderating effect of regulatory focus strengthens as firm complexity increases and as CEO tenure lengthens, because complexity and tenure both increase CEOs' reliance on heuristic information processing. Specifically, complexity restricts a CEO's cognitive capacity for thoughtful deliberation during decision making, and tenure affects a CEO's motivation to search for and process information thoroughly. We find general support for the hypotheses and discuss the implications of our findings for future research and practice.

Section 91 of the Income Tax Act 1976 provides that where a taxpayer disposes of trading stock for no or inadequate consideration the stock is deemed to have realised its market price. The market price is then bought into the calculation of the taxpayer’s assessable income. In the context of land purchases the crucial issue is whether the land was acquired for the purposes of resale. If so, the land is treated for tax purposes as if it were trading stock.

We examine the costs of trading restrictions by exploiting an SEC rule change that eliminates a 60-day restriction period in private placements for small issuers. Using a difference-indifferences specification, we find that the restriction is binding, as turnover increases by 30% following its removal, and costly, as offering discounts fall by eight percentage points (a 66% decrease). Discounts fall 80% more for issuers with high information asymmetry. Our results are robust to tests that account for endogenous response to the rule change. Overall, our findings suggest that trading restrictions are costly and have large effects on firms’ cost of capital.

This study investigates how two stock-based incentives affect the risk-taking behavior of CEOs. We compare stock options and restricted stock in terms of their impact on the magnitude of investments and performance extremeness. We test our hypotheses using data for 23 years starting from 1993 for a large sample of S&P 1500 firms. Our results indicate that both stock option and restricted stock pay increase the magnitude of investments undertaken by CEOs, but that stock options have a much stronger effect. Also, stock option pay increases the likelihood of both big gains and big losses, but restricted stock reduces the likelihood of big losses. Finally, we find that as CEO tenure increases, the effects of stock-based compensation tend to diminish. Therefore, stock-based incentives appear to be a useful solution to the agency problem for short-tenured CEOs, but much less so for long-tenured CEOs.

Stock investment is different from saving investment, deposits or foreign exchange, because stock investment always encounters many investors with their various profit expectations. Each stock investor has always to monitor the latest stock assurance development and observe the stock flow in the stock markets carefully and thoroughly, because they influence the stock prices.Many factors influence the stock prices, including the seller or buyer psychological factor, company condition, interest rate, rupiah exchange rate against foreign currency, economic condition, government policies, inflation rate, the country’s political and safety condition, and many others. This study analyzes the influence of those factors on the stock prices and is entitled “An Analysis of the influence of Macroeconomic Factors on Stock Prices in Go Public Manufacture Companies in Indonesia Stock Exchange “.The population are 151 manufacturing companies, 116 of which were analyzed in 3 years (2005 – 2007). The result shows that macroeconomic (inflation, SBI rates and rate of exchange) variables have significantly influenced the stock prices.

This study examine earnings management behavior related to compensation in the form of stock options during implementation of the grant program (vesting period). The study also examine and identify the differences in behavior during the execution of stock options. Companies as a sample in this study is a company listed in the Indonesia Stock Exchange, which has adopted the Executive Stock Option Plan and restricted to the companies that publish financial statements as of December 31 for the year 2007 to 2009. Final sample of this research into as many as 21 sample companies and the number of observations are 63 observational studies. The result of testing H1 shows that the more stock options offered to employees, the managers more motivated to manage earnings down prior to offering stock options. The results are consistent with previous studies of the behavior of managers who expect the share price decline before the date of grant, so the manager to pay compensation for stock options with a relatively cheap price. The results of testing H2a and H2b show that the more stock options offered to employees, the managers more motivated to manage earnings upward after offering stock options. Results show that an early stage implementation of executive stock option plans, executives trend to behave increasing income until vesting period final.

This paper selects A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2013 to 2016 as research samples. This study shows that: the equity incentive to executives and corporate performance present the relationship of inverted U-shaped; the salary incentive will positively affect the relationship of inverted U-shaped between equity incentives and corporate performance; the salary incentive will positively affect the relationship between incentive of restricted stock and corporate performance, and negatively affect the relationship between incentive of stock option and corporate performance.

This study investigates whether a firm's past or future performance is related with the adoption of restricted stock grants. In addition, it also explores the relation between conditions of adopting restricted stock grants and firms' future performance. Empirical results show that there is no significant relationship between firms' past performance and the adoption of restricted stock grants. By contrast, improved future performance is found for companies adopting this compensation policy. Further, the incentive effect of restricted stock grants could be improved by extending the vesting service period, increasing the expenses amount of restricted stock grants, and decreasing the reduction in EPS. This article contributes to the serious lack of restricted stock grants literature in Taiwan. Also, it may offer some implications to companies considering the compensation scheme of restricted stock grants.