Other Side of Voluntary Clawback Provisions in Executive Compensation Contracts: Evidence from the Investment Efficiency

Abstract

This study examines how firm-initiated clawback provisions in executive compensation contracts affect firms’ investment efficiency. While existing the literature provides evidence on positive aspects of adopting clawback provisions, the potential impact of clawback adoption on firms’ long-term investment efficiency remains unexplored. Using three investment proxies (i.e., capital expenditure, new investment, and total investment), we find that clawback adopters tend to reduce their long-term investments after the clawback provisions are put in place, compared to nonadopters. In particular, we find evidence that the adoption of clawback policies decreases the investment efficiency in the post-adoption period, especially for the firms whose ex ante probability of underinvestment is high. Our additional analyses reveal that observed reduction in the investment efficiency for the firms that are likely to underinvest is more evident for the firms with financial constraints and the firms that adopt risk-taking and performance-based clawback triggers. In contrast, the clawback adopters that are likely to overinvest do not change their investment behavior in the post-adoption period. Overall, our findings suggest that the impleme ntation of clawback provisions may lead to unintended consequences for firms’ long-term investment practices, resulting in a decrease in the investment efficiency.