Abstract
The riskiness developed by Aumann and Serrano (J Polit Econ 116:810–836, 2008) is a measure based on mean, standard deviation and higher order moments. Instead of relying on corporate policies as indirect measures of firm risk, we theoretically show a positive relation between the value of compensation contracts with convex payoff and the firm’s option implied riskiness through second-order stochastic dominance and provide supportive empirical evidence of this risk taking incentive. To address the endogeneity concern, we perform a difference-in-difference analysis using the implementation of FAS 123R in 2006, an accounting standard under which firms are required to recognize the fair value-based expense of stock option grants. Firms thereby are discouraged from granting executive stock options (ESO) because of the higher cost resulted from the strict expense recognition required by FAS 123R. Hence, the implementation of FAS 123R results in an exogenous negative shock to the use of ESO. Using this approach, we find a significant decrease in the option implied riskiness subsequent to FAS 123R, supportive of the risk-taking incentive associated with executive stock options.
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Notes
Following the theoretical relation indicated by the Black–Scholes option pricing formula whereby the value of equity compensation increases in the risk of firm value, many have hypothesized that the convexity of compensation payoff (often referred to in the literature as vega) induces risk-averse managers to increase firm risks (e.g., Haugen and Senbet 1981; Smith and Watts 1982; Smith and Stulz 1985). However, this hypothesis also is challenged on theoretical grounds in several studies (e.g. Lambert et al. 1991; Carpenter 2000; Ross 2004; Lewellen 2006). Via sophisticated analyses, these studies find that a manager’s equity compensation holdings do not unambiguously increase risk-taking incentives, as the actual incentive effect depends on an array of manager-level characteristics such as personal wealth and risk-aversion degrees.
Ferri and Li (2020) find that managers with more options-based compensation favor repurchases over cash payouts following FAS 123R.
Some work in asset pricing suggests that investors favor right skewness (e.g., Rubinstein 1973; Kraus and Litzenberger 1976; Jean 1971; Kane 1982; Harvey and Siddique 2000), but are averse to tail-risk and rare disasters (e.g., Barro 2006, 2009; Gabaix 2008, 2012; Gourio 2012; Chen et al. 2012; Wachter 2013).
Foster and Hart (2009) consider the possibility that an agent’s risk tolerance depends on the agent’s wealth, and define riskiness as the minimal wealth level at which they are willing to accept the risky asset.
See p. 9 of Aumann and Serrano (2008).
In addition, Dong et al. (2010) find that CEOs with higher convexity of compensation payoff are more likely to raise debts than to raise equity when they have financing needs. However, although R&D investment and firm focus can be regarded as risky corporate strategies, these policies can also be endogenously determined optimal corporate strategies. That is, whether managerial compensation indeed induces “excessive” risk-taking behavior is also an important research question. For example, Shen and Zhang (2013) find that R&D investments made by CEOs holding excessively high convexity of compensation payoff display low efficiencies.
Please see Appendix for the derivation of (2).
Under risk neutral measure, the expected value of (ST- S0)/S0 (\({\mu }_{y,f}\)) is equal to \({e}^{(r-q)T}-1\) under F and G. In addition, if m = 0, the convexity of the payoff structure disappears and (5) will be reduced to \({e}^{-qT}\).
As noted for example by Iqbal and Vähämaa (2019), vega provides an explicit measure of the risk-sensitivity of executive compensation.
The proof is available on request.
A comparison between using implied volatility and our riskiness measures is in order. Implied volatility is intuitive and simple to calculate. Nevertheless, the riskiness index is advantageous for the following reasons. While the increase in implied volatility will lead to the increase in call prices, the implied volatility may vary with the strike prices if the distribution of the stock price is not lognormal. Given the exact strike prices of ESOs for a certain CEO is hard to ascertain in reality, it is empirically difficult for researchers to decide which exact strike price we should use to investigate the risk-taking incentives of CEOs. Therefore, by using the riskiness index, we avoid such problem and theoretically link the convexity of the compensation payoff structure to the ESO values and the firm riskiness through the SSD.
As suggested by Buss and Vilkov (2012), we select out-of-the-money options (put options with deltas strictly larger than − 0.5 and call options with deltas smaller than 0.5).
Specifically, we interpolate the Black–Scholes implied volatilities inside the available moneyness range and extrapolate using the boundaries to fill in 1000 grid points in the moneyness range from 1/3 to 3.
If the distribution F dominates G by SSD under risk neutral measure, the risk neutral volatility should be larger under distribution G. However, we cannot compare the volatility of distribution F and distribution G under the real world measure.
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Appendix
Appendix
According to the spanning formula of Bakshi and Madan (2000) and Bakshi et al. (2003), any function of the form \(H\left(S\right)\) with \(E\left[H\left(S\right)\right]< \infty\) can spanned by a collection of call and put options:
where \({H}_{S}\left(\bullet \right)\) and \({H}_{SS}\left(\bullet \right)\) represent the first and second derivative of H with respect to S and \(\overline{S }\) is the initial stock price. We denote
In addition, S denotes \({S}_{j,T}\), \(\overline{S }\) denotes \({S}_{j,0}\) and \(H\left[{S}_{j,T}\right]={e}^{-\frac{{g}_{j,T}}{{{\varvec{R}}}_{j}}}\). Since \(E\left({e}^{-\frac{{g}_{j,T}}{{{\varvec{R}}}_{j}}}\right)=1\) and by the spanning formula of Bakshi and Madan (2000) and Bakshi et al. (2003), we have
where \({r}_{T}\) is the return on the risk-free security over a period T, \({P}_{j}\left(K,T\right)\) and \({C}_{j}\left(K,T\right)\) are put price and call price of stock j with strike price equal to K and time to maturity equal to T at the present time 0 respectively, and
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Lu, CC., Shen, C.Hh., Shih, PT. et al. Option implied riskiness and risk-taking incentives of executive compensation. Rev Quant Finan Acc 60, 1143–1160 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-022-01123-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11156-022-01123-2