This paper analyzes the CEO incentives of inside debt in the form of deferred equity compensation in the context of M&A decisions. This study runs statistical regressions on the likelihood of a merger, whether the deal is diversifying, how much stock is used to pay for the deal, and the relative...

I analyze both CEO inside debt and firm debt jointly to further investigate the compensation incentives on risky decision-making and the resulting financial policy decisions concerning the debt structure of the firm. I find larger firms with high CEO inside debt tend to diversify, as calculated...

We analyze the incentives of CEO inside debt in the form of pensions and deferred compensation in the context of merger and acquisition decisions. CEO inside debt holdings are negatively associated with the likelihood of the firm engaging in merger or acquisition activity. When firms with...