The Joint Discipline of Option and Debt: Theory and Evidence from CEO's Equity Holding, Capital Structure, and Executive Compensation

Purpose – This research studies how the discipline of option-like personal equity portfolio and the market discipline of debt jointly affect executive compensation design.

Design/methodology/approach – A theoretical model is proposed based on the moral hazard problem of Holmstrom and Milgrom (1987) by integrating firm financial leverage, executive equity holding, and profit-sharing rule. Subsequently, a panel data set of executive compensation is analyzed to provide empirical evidence.

Findings – The discipline of option reduces the need of performance-based compensation. The discipline of debt reduces the use of incentive pay for lowly leveraged firms, but increases the use of incentive pay for highly leveraged firms. These two disciplines can be either complements or substitutes on affecting optimal contracts depending on firm leverage.

Research limitations/implications – The present study provides a starting point for further study of optimal compensation that is not only the conventional one of mainly aligning managerial interests with that of shareholders but also the one of reinforcing the joint discipline of debt and option.

Originality/value – This new perspective produces several results characterizing firms that the discipline of debt and the discipline of option can be either complements or substitutes on affecting incentive compensation design.