The problem is that?incentive compensation based on financial performance does a lousy job of?distinguishing skill from luck.
Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai believes American companies and investment firms have erred?horribly?by linking manager compensation so tightly to financial market performance. In the current Harvard Business Review, he identifies this as a giant FIB, a Financial Incentive Bubble:
Skip to next paragraph Donald MarronDonald B. Marron is director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. He previously served as a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and as acting director of the Congressional Budget Office.
Recent posts
American capitalism has been transformed over the past three decades by the idea that financial markets are suited to measuring performance and structuring compensation. Stock-based pay for corporate executives and high-powered incentive contracts for investment managers have dramatically altered incentives on both sides of the capital market. Unfortunately, the idea of compensation based on financial markets is both remarkably alluring and deeply flawed: It seems to link pay more closely to performance, but it actually rewards luck and can incentivize dangerous risk-taking. This system has contributed significantly to the twin crises of modern American capitalism: governance failures that cast doubt on the stewardship abilities of U.S. managers and investors, and rising income inequality.
Mihir has nothing against well-functioning financial markets. He emphasizes that they ?play a vital role in economic growth by ensuring the most efficient allocations of capital,? and he believes that capable managers and investors should be ?richly rewarded? when their talents are truly evident.
The problem is that?incentive compensation based on financial performance does a lousy job of?distinguishing skill from luck. In finance-speak, managers and investors often get rewarded for taking on beta, when their pay really ought to be linked to alpha. In practice, luck?gets rewarded with?undeserved windfalls (that are by no means offset by negative windfalls?for the unlucky).?And?that, he argues,?results in an important??misallocation of financial, real, and human capital.?
Well worth a read.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on dmarron.com.
paranormal activity 3 trailer paranormal activity 3 trailer oomph oomph cmj olin kreutz olin kreutz
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.