Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/oxf/wpaper/532.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Case For Intervening In Bankers' Pay

Author

Listed:
  • John Thanassoulis
Abstract
This paper studies banker remuneration in a competitive market for banker talent. I model, and then calibrate, the default risk of the banks generated by investments and remuneration pressures. Competing banks prefer to pay their banking staff in bonuses and not in wages as risk sharing on the remuneration bill is valuable. But competition for bankers generates a negative externality driving up rival banks' default risk. Optimal financial regulation involves an appropriately structured limit on the proportion of the balance sheet used for bonuses. However stringent bonus caps are value destroying, default risk enhancing and cannot be optimal for regulators who control only a small number of banks. The paper allows an assessment of the intellectual arguments behind widespread calls to regulate the pay of bankers. The paper uses US data to calibrate the analysis and demonstrate the significant contribution of remuneration to default risk.

Suggested Citation

  • John Thanassoulis, 2011. "The Case For Intervening In Bankers' Pay," Economics Series Working Papers 532, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:532
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8c7a2df1-a872-4529-a4e9-4be8d3335eed
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2005. "Contract Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025760, April.
    2. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    3. Richard H. Thaler & Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman & Alan Schwartz, 1997. "The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 647-661.
    4. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    5. Crawford, Vincent P & Knoer, Elsie Marie, 1981. "Job Matching with Heterogeneous Firms and Workers," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 437-450, March.
    6. Joshua D. Coval & Tyler Shumway, 2005. "Do Behavioral Biases Affect Prices?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 1-34, February.
    7. Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky & Zoltan Pozsar, 2013. "Shadow banking," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Dec, pages 1-16.
      • Tobias Adrian & Adam B. Ashcraft & Hayley Boesky & Zoltan Pozsar, 2010. "Shadow banking," Staff Reports 458, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    8. Alex Edmans & Qi Liu, 2011. "Inside Debt," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 15(1), pages 75-102.
    9. Patrick Bolton & Hamid Mehran & Joel Shapiro, 2015. "Executive Compensation and Risk Taking," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 19(6), pages 2139-2181.
    10. Michiel Bijlsma & Jan Boone & Gijsbert Zwart, 2018. "Competition for traders and risk," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 49(4), pages 855-876, December.
    11. Uri Gneezy & Arie Kapteyn & Jan Potters, 2003. "Evaluation Periods and Asset Prices in a Market Experiment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(2), pages 821-837, April.
    12. Rosenberg, Joshua V. & Engle, Robert F., 2002. "Empirical pricing kernels," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 341-372, June.
    13. Jeremy Bulow & Jonathan Levin, 2006. "Matching and Price Competition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 652-668, June.
    14. Alexandre Ziegler, 2007. "Why Does Implied Risk Aversion Smile?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 20(3), pages 859-904.
    15. Lawrence M. Ausubel & Peter Cramton, 2004. "Auctioning Many Divisible Goods," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(2-3), pages 480-493, 04/05.
    16. Volker Nocke & John Thanassoulis, 2014. "Vertical Relations Under Credit Constraints," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 337-367, April.
    17. Gneezy, U. & Kapteyn, A. & Potters, J.J.M., 2003. "Evaluation periods and asset prices in a market experience," Other publications TiSEM 55910884-79d7-483c-abbb-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    18. Boone, Jan, 2000. "Competition," CEPR Discussion Papers 2636, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    20. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    21. Thanassoulis John, 2009. "Now Is the Right Time to Regulate Bankers' Pay," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 6(5), pages 1-4, April.
    22. Fabienne Llense, 2010. "French CEOs' Compensations: What is the Cost of a Mandatory Upper Limit?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 56(2), pages 165-191, June.
    23. Ilia D. Dichev, 2007. "What Are Stock Investors’ Actual Historical Returns? Evidence from Dollar-Weighted Returns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 386-401, March.
    24. Yu-Jane Liu & Chih-Ling Tsai & Ming-Chun Wang & Ning Zhu, 2010. "Prior Consequences and Subsequent Risk Taking: New Field Evidence from the Taiwan Futures Exchange," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(4), pages 606-620, April.
    25. Paul Milgrom, 2000. "Putting Auction Theory to Work: The Simultaneous Ascending Auction," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(2), pages 245-272, April.
    26. Fabienne Llense, 2010. "French CEOs' Compensations: What is the Cost of a Mandatory Upper Limit?," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) hal-00497583, HAL.
    27. Jackwerth, Jens Carsten, 2000. "Recovering Risk Aversion from Option Prices and Realized Returns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(2), pages 433-451.
    28. Fabienne Llense, 2010. "French CEOs' Compensations: What is the Cost of a Mandatory Upper Limit?," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-00497583, HAL.
    29. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:2:p:821-838 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Dittmann, Ingolf & Maug, Ernst & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Restricting CEO pay," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1200-1220, September.
    31. Alan D. Morrison & William J. Wilhelm, 2008. "The Demise of Investment Banking Partnerships: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(1), pages 311-350, February.
    32. Rochet, Jean-Charles, 1992. "Capital requirements and the behaviour of commercial banks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 1137-1170, June.
    33. Fabienne Llense, 2010. "French CEOs' Compensations: What is the Cost of a Mandatory Upper Limit?," Post-Print hal-00497583, HAL.
    34. Anat R. Admati & Peter M. DeMarzo & Martin F. Hellwig & Paul Pfleiderer, 2010. "Fallacies, Irrelevant Facts, and Myths in the Discussion of Capital Regulation: Why Bank Equity is Not Expensive," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2010_42, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    35. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2007. "Selection, Growth, and the Size Distribution of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1103-1144.
    36. Bebchuk Lucian, 2009. "Fixing Bankers' Pay," The Economists' Voice, De Gruyter, vol. 6(11), pages 1-7, November.
    37. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2011. "The Effect of Risk on the CEO Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(8), pages 2822-2863.
    38. Alan D. Morrison & William J. Wilhelm, 2004. "The Demise of Investment-Banking Partnerships: Theory and Evidence," OFRC Working Papers Series 2004fe14, Oxford Financial Research Centre.
    39. Viral V. Acharya & Paolo F. Volpin, 2010. "Corporate Governance Externalities," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-33.
    40. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2009. "A Multiplicative Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4881-4917, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Thanassoulis, 2011. "Bankers' Pay Structure And Risk," Economics Series Working Papers 545, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    2. Dittmann, Ingolf & Maug, Ernst & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Restricting CEO pay," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1200-1220, September.
    3. Thanassoulis, John, 2014. "Bank pay caps, bank risk, and macroprudential regulation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 139-151.
    4. Hueber, Laura & Schwaiger, Rene, 2022. "Debiasing through experience sampling: The case of myopic loss aversion," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 87-138.
    5. John Thanassoulis, 2013. "Industry Structure, Executive Pay, and Short-Termism," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(2), pages 402-419, June.
    6. Jakusch, Sven Thorsten, 2017. "On the applicability of maximum likelihood methods: From experimental to financial data," SAFE Working Paper Series 148, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2017.
    7. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    8. Epper, Thomas & Fehr-Duda, Helga, 2017. "A Tale of Two Tails: On the Coexistence of Overweighting and Underweighting of Rare Extreme Events," Economics Working Paper Series 1705, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    9. Laura Hueber & Rene Schwaiger, 2021. "Debiasing Through Experience Sampling: The Case of Myopic Loss Aversion," Working Papers 2021-01, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    10. Gerlinde Fellner & Matthias Sutter, 2009. "Causes, Consequences, and Cures of Myopic Loss Aversion – An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 900-916, April.
    11. Schwaiger, Rene & Hueber, Laura, 2021. "Do MTurkers exhibit myopic loss aversion?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    12. Gersbach, Hans & Schmutzler, Armin, 2014. "Does globalization create superstars? A simple theory of managerial wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 34-51.
    13. Francis Larson & John A. List & Robert D. Metcalfe, 2016. "Can Myopic Loss Aversion Explain the Equity Premium Puzzle? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment with Professional Traders," NBER Working Papers 22605, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Phan, Thuy Chung & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Wang, Mei, 2018. "What leads to overtrading and under-diversification? Survey evidence from retail investors in an emerging market," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 39-55.
    15. Gu, Leilei, 2023. "Executives’ financial experience and myopic marketing management: A myopic loss-aversion perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    16. Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela & Sutter, Matthias & Zeileis, Achim, 2015. "No myopic loss aversion in adolescents? – An experimental note," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 169-176.
    17. Thomas Epper & Helga Fehr-Duda, 2012. "The missing link: unifying risk taking and time discounting," ECON - Working Papers 096, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Oct 2018.
    18. Melesse, Mequanint B. & Cecchi, Francesco, 2017. "Does Market Experience Attenuate Risk Aversion? Evidence from Landed Farm Households in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 447-466.
    19. Hauke Jelschen & Ulrich Schmidt, 2023. "Windfall gains and house money: The effects of endowment history and prior outcomes on risky decision–making," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 66(3), pages 215-232, June.
    20. Clayton Arlen Looney & Andrew M. Hardin, 2009. "Decision Support for Retirement Portfolio Management: Overcoming Myopic Loss Aversion via Technology Design," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 55(10), pages 1688-1703, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bonuses; default risk; competition for bankers; financial regulation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Economic Logic blog

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oxf:wpaper:532. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Anne Pouliquen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sfeixuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.