Performance Evaluation, Managerial Hedging, and Contract Termination

Abstract

We develop a dynamic model where a principal contracts with an agent to operate a firm. The agent, protected by limited liability, trades privately a market portfolio to hedge market risk in his compensation. When liquidation cost of the firm is proportional to its size, the principal manages the termination risk by loading the contract with a positive market component, which alleviates termination risk in normal market conditions but makes termination more likely after negative market shocks. The optimal contract displays a dynamic mixture of absolute and relative performance evaluations and is implemented using a dynamic deferred compensation account. This paper was accepted by Agostino Capponi, finance. Funding: Y. Huang acknowledges financial support from the Shanghai Institute of International Finance and Economics and Fudan University [Gao Feng Project]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4533 .

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