Production and hedging implications of executive compensation schemes

Sagi Akron, Simon Benninga

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper connects executive compensation with hedging and analyzes a crucial shareholders and managers agency source that evolves from the pricing of the hedging device. The shareholders are risk-neutral, while the risk-averse manager hedges the price risk of the manufactured quantity, and his compensation package includes equity-linked compensation-stock grants. Only when the hedging instrument's pricing includes a risk premium, hedging is costly to the shareholders, while it is costless to the manager. Then from the owners' point of view, we observe managerial over-hedging, increasing in the equity-linked compensation level. This result leads to a violation of the classical production and hedging separation theorem. We conclude that, in the case where the hedging device's pricing bears a risk premium, shareholders can regulate the corporate value diversion to managers through diminishing the managerial equity-linked compensation scheme or by putting restrictions on the extent of hedging activities of executives.

Original languageAmerican English
Pages (from-to)119-139
Number of pages21
JournalJournal of Corporate Finance
Volume19
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2013

Keywords

  • Corporate hedging devices
  • Executive equity-linked compensation
  • Frictions
  • Optimal managerial compensation scheme
  • Regulation
  • Separation theorems

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Business and International Management
  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics
  • Strategy and Management

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