CEO Incentives, Relationship Lending and the Cost of Corporate Borrowing
45 Pages Posted: 26 Feb 2015 Last revised: 11 Sep 2016
Date Written: May 17, 2016
Abstract
This paper investigates how lending relationships attenuate the conflict of interest between creditors and shareholders that arises from CEO compensation contracts. We find that lending relationships mitigate the influence of CEO risk-taking incentives on loan spreads, especially for informationally-opaque firms. In addition, lending relationships also attenuate the impacts of CEO risk-taking incentives on maturity and collateral requirements. This study highlights the importance of bank monitoring through lending relationships to mitigate managerial risk-shifting activities that arise from equity incentives.
Keywords: risk-taking incentives; bank relationship, cost of debt
JEL Classification: G3, G21, G32, J33
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation