Relative Performance Evaluation and Strategic Peer-Harming Disclosures

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bloomfield, Matthew J.; Heinle, Mirko S.; Timmermans, Oscar
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTING RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-8456
• DOI: 10.1111/1475-679X.12543
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 877-933
• 关键词: economic consequences; COMPETITION; sabotage; COMPENSATION; incentives; complexity; liquidity; POLICY; FIRMS

摘要

Many firms use relative stock performance to evaluate and incentivize their CEOs their. We document that such firms routinely disclose information that harms their peers' stock prices, and sometimes explicitly mention the harmed peers, by name, in these disclosures. Consistent with deliberate sabotage, peer-harming disclosures appear to be aimed at peers whose stock price depressions are most likely to benefit the disclosing firms' CEOs. The pricing effect of these disclosures does not reverse, suggesting that the disclosures contain legitimate information regarding peers' prospects. In sum, our results suggest that relative performance evaluation in CEO pay motivates CEOs to internalize the externalities of their disclosures, and strategically disclose information that harms peers' stock prices, in order to improve their firms' relative standing within their peer group.