Insider Information and Performance Pay

George-Levi Gayle () and Robert A. Miller

CESifo Economic Studies, 2009, vol. 55, issue 3-4, 515-541

Abstract: This article provides evidence that managers have private information they exploit for financial gain at the expense of shareholders. It develops a model of optimal contracting to show that moral hazard, hidden actions taken by agents, can rationalize why a principal would optimally induce agents to benefit from their private information. Estimates from a structural model shows that moral hazard is an important economic factor. This leads to the conclusion that, in practice, shareholders and managers might optimally agree upon an arrangement where managers systematically exploit their private information about the firm. (JEL codes: J3, K2, G3 and C5). Copyright The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2009
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