My dissertation consists of three chapters which explores various aspects of executive incentives. In the first chapter, I examine the relation between executive equity pay and stock returns. By compensating CEOs and CFOs differently, shareholders can create incentive conflicts between the firms’ top two managers that potentially affects shareholder wealth. On the one hand, incentive conflict potentially benefits shareholders by improving information exchange and establishing checks and balances in decisions made jointly by the CEO and CFO but alternatively, can harm shareholders by increasing risk through impeding the decision-making processes. I examine the relation between CEO-CFO incentive conflict and stock returns. The analysis indicates that an investor who routinely buy firms with the least incentive conflict and shorts firms with the greatest incentive conflict between CEO and CFOs will outperform the market by 475 basis points per year. I investigate whether risk, firm performance, or market inefficiency explain the excess returns and provide evidence that shareholders demand higher returns for bearing risk associated with CEO-CFO incentive similarities. Next, I explore the impact of executive incentives on bondholder wealth through looking at bond yields. Firms compensate managers to maximize shareholder value, yet these same incentives affect bondholder risk. I investigate the relation between executive equity pay and the cost of debt. My findings indicate a “u-shaped” relation between bond yields and equity pay. These results are consistent with the notion that bondholders prefer a moderate amount of executive equity pay and above or below that level, bondholders increase yields to protect their interests. Instrumenting equity pay using CEO heritage, I find support for a curvilinear relation. These findings suggest that moderate levels of equity pay mitigate the agency costs between firm shareholders and bondholders. Finally, I study the affect of board gender diversity on CEO and director compensation. Females occupy only about 12% of director positions on corporate boards. I find that boards with more female’s onboard tend to give CEOs larger fractions of equity in their compensation packages while incentivizing directors with lower fractions of equity pay. This evidence is consistent with the notion that female board members are superior monitors yet also possess greater risk-aversion than male board members. / Business Administration/Finance

Ce mémoire présente une analyse comparative exploratoire de la non-utilisation de l’appareil juridique étatique trinidadien en cas de conflit de travail pour les travailleurs migrants temporaires et les travailleurs trinidadiens au sein de French Touch Construction, filiale d’une entreprise française de construction à Port of Spain (Trinidad et Tobago). C’est à travers une perspective foucaldienne que sera examinée la question de la non-utilisation de l’appareil juridique étatique trinidadien en cas de conflit de travail. Cette non-utilisation de l’appareil juridique étatique est étudiée comme un effet des migrations internationales de travail, et ce, à l’encontre des travailleurs migrants (Sud et Nord) et des travailleurs locaux trinidadiens. Ainsi, je propose que nous assistons à une transformation des conditions de travail et des droits accordés aux employés trinidadiens et non pas uniquement à l’encontre des travailleurs temporaires migrants. En effet, le phénomène des migrations internationales de travail dégrade également le statut social de l’employé local qui est concurrencé par cette main-d’oeuvre étrangère, en provenance des pays du Sud ou du Nord et qu’il doit lui aussi être plus flexible et moins exigeant sur ses droits pour être inclus dans cette nouvelle économie du travail. / This research focuses on an exploratory comparative study on the non-accessibility to justice in labor dispute for temporary migrant workers and local workers, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Port-Of-Spain (Trinidad and Tobago) in a French construction company named French Touch Construction. Building from Foucault's thought, I analyze the non-accessibility to justice as a negative effect of the international labor migrations on temporary migrant workers (North and South) and Trinidadian workers. As a result, I argue that the transformation of work and workers’ rights are not only an issue for temporary migrant workers but also for Trinidadian workers. Effectively, international labor migration involve competition between employees and thus deteriorate the social status of Trinidadian employees in the French Touch Company. Indeed, employees have to be more flexible and less demanding of their rights to be included in this new work economy. To sum it up, I suggest that the international labor migrations, which encourage the worker to perceive himself as a holder of limited rights, also favor a managerial conflict resolution that is unfavorable for the employee.