The Journal of Finance publishes leading research across all the major fields of finance. It is one of the most widely cited journals in academic finance, and in all of economics. Each of the six issues per year reaches over 8,000 academics, finance professionals, libraries, and government and financial institutions around the world. The journal is the official publication of The American Finance Association, the premier academic organization devoted to the study and promotion of knowledge about financial economics.
AFA members can log in to view full-text articles below.
View past issues
Search the Journal of Finance:
Search results: 2.
Rank‐Order Tournaments and Incentive Alignment: The Effect on Firm Performance
Published: 05/20/2009 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.2009.01470.x
JAYANT R. KALE, EBRU REIS, ANAND VENKATESWARAN
We investigate simultaneously the impact of promotion‐based tournament incentives for VPs and equity‐based (alignment) incentives for VPs and the chief executive officer (CEO) on firm performance. We find that tournament incentives, as measured by the pay differential between the CEO and VPs, relate positively to firm performance. The relation is more positive when the CEO nears retirement and less positive when the firm has a new CEO, and weakens further when the new CEO is an outsider. Our analysis is robust to corrections for endogeneity of all our incentive measures and to several alternative measures of tournament incentives and firm performance.
The Effect of Business Risk on Corporate Capital Structure: Theory and Evidence
Published: 12/01/1991 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6261.1991.tb04640.x
JAYANT R. KALE, THOMAS H. NOE, GABRIEL G. RAMÌREZ
Under corporate and personal taxation, we demonstrate that the relation between optimal debt level and business risk is roughly U‐shaped. This result follows from the fact that the tax liability is an option portfolio that is long in the corporate tax option and short in the personal tax option. Therefore, the net effect of a change in business risk on the optimal debt level depends upon the relative magnitudes of the resultant marginal changes in the values of these two options. Results of empirical tests offer support for the predicted U‐shaped relationship.