Keywords

Corporate Governance

Abstract

This dissertation is composed by two essays that explore the changes in corporate governance around the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) 2002. In the first essay, I examine the relation between board structure and compensation as a bargaining game between the board and the CEO. Bargaining game theories describe an endogenous process of determining the structure of director and CEO compensation. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) altered the equilibrium of power between the board and CEO by changing the monitoring role of the board. SOX essentially provides a natural experiment to test how a shock to the bargaining game alters the balance of power between directors and the CEO. Using the ratio of director compensation to CEO compensation to proxy for bargaining power, I find a significant increase following the passage of SOX, consistent with directors gaining bargaining advantage. Moreover, firms with strong shareholder rights exhibit even greater evidence of power shifting to the directors. Overall, the results suggest that directors gain more power relative to the CEO in determining compensation plans and strong shareholder rights help firms to align directors' incentives with those of shareholders. In the second essay, I examine the relation between CEO compensation structure and acquirer returns. In the literature, researchers find that executive compensation structures influence corporate acquisition decisions. Equity-based executive compensation should reduce the non-value-maximizing behavior of acquiring managers. A series of corporate reforms such as SOX and the FASB expensing rule affected the structure of CEO equity-based compensation. I find a significant increase in CEO restricted stock compensation and a significant decrease in CEO option-based compensation following these reforms. I also find that CEOs with strong managerial power are more likely to receive more restricted stock in their compensation package after the 2002 reforms. Finally, I find a significant positive relation between the restricted stock compensation of acquiring firm CEOs and abnormal stock returns after 2002. This provides empirical support on the effectiveness of the shift away from options towards restricted stock in executive compensation packages. Restricted stock is associated with better merger decisions.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2009

Advisor

Frye, Melissa

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Business Administration

Department

Finance

Degree Program

Business Administration

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0002916

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0002916

Language

English

Release Date

February 2010

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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