演讲题目： The Asymmetric  Information Content in Unexpected Bonus

Compensation

演讲者:  Zhonglan  Dai，   Associate Professor of Accounting， Jindal School of  

Management， University of Texas at  Dallas

演讲时间：2016年12月16日（周五）上午10:00一11：30

演讲地点:  嘉庚二203

参加者：对会计、财务研究有兴趣的师生

ABSTRACT

Between two common forms of  incentive compensation: cash bonus and equity grants, the boards in less risky  and more certain firms would prefer bonus when they can monitor and assess their  CEOs better. In the meantime, prior literature documents strong evidence that  boards have tendency to shield their CEOs (especially their bonus) from poor  performance. This, in turn, makes the unexpected bonus reduction informative for  those firms. We study the information content embedded in the bonus  compensation, especially unexpected bonus reduction, by examining its predicting  power on a firm’s future. Controlling for all known factors, we find that the  unexpected bonus reduction (not unexpected bonus raise) predicts both future  operating performance and forced CEO turnovers. We also find that shareholders  respond to the unexpected bonus reduction when the relevant compensation  information becomes public. Together, our results suggest that the unexpected  bonus reduction decision contains such rich private information that it helps  predict future operating performance and CEO  firings.