On the Timing of CEO Stock Option Awards
研究发现CEO在非计划期权授予前股票异常回报为负、授予后为正，且该模式随时间增强，表明高管可能利用时机优势，甚至存在回溯授予。
This study documents that the abnormal stock returns are negative before unscheduled executive option awards and positive afterward. The return pattern has intensified over time, suggesting that executives have gradually become more effective at timing awards to their advantage, and possibly explaining why the results in this study differ from those in past studies. Moreover, I document that the predicted returns are abnormally low before the awards and abnormally high afterward. Unless executives possess an extraordinary ability to forecast the future marketwide movements that drive these predicted returns, the results suggest that at least some of the awards are timed retroactively.