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Financial Compensation (financial + compensation)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	33%

Selected Abstracts

Financial Compensation for Victims of Catastrophes: A Law and Economics Perspective

LAW & POLICY, Issue 3 2007
MICHAEL G. FAURE
This article examines the various approaches legislators may use to compensate victims of catastrophes. Traditional law and economics of insurance literature, with respect to government relief and insurance solutions towards financial compensation, is used to analyze (highly diverging) approaches in Europe and the United States. First, the importance of liability (insurance) is discussed in cases where a liable injurer can be identified; second, the possibilities of first-party insurance are examined, whereby various regulatory solutions (particularly the French model of providing mandatory coverage for catastrophes) is critically discussed. The (first-party) insurance solution is compared with public intervention, and a distinction is made between ad hoc government relief on an ex-post basis and structural compensation funds. The solutions applied and discussed in many countries are critically analyzed for their ability to provide adequate compensation at low costs and their effects on incentives for prevention and for developing private (insurance) solutions. [source]

Redesigning Corporate Governance Structures and Systems for the Twenty First Century

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2001
Robert A.G. Monks
How a corporation is governed has become in recent years an increasingly important element in how it is valued by the market place. McKinsey & Company in June 2000 published the results of an Investor Opinion Survey of attitudes about the corporate governance of portfolio companies. The survey gathered responses about investment intentions from over 200 institutions who together manage approximately $3.25 trillion in assets. Ranging from 17 per cent in the US and Britain to over 27 per cent in Venezuela, investors placed a specific premium on what was called "Board Governance". To put this into perspective, consider how greatly sales would have to increase, expenses be cut and margins improved to achieve a comparable impact on value. "For purposes of the survey, a well governed company is defined as having a majority of outside directors on the board with no management ties; holding formal evaluations of directors; and being responsive to investor requests for information on governance issues. In addition, directors hold significant stockholdings in the company, and a large proportion of directors' pay is in the form of stock options." This correlation of governance with market value by one of the most respected consulting companies in the world creates the foundations of a new language for management accountability. McKinsey has great credibility as a value-adding advisor to corporate managements. Governance is not a cause or a theology for McKinsey; it is an important element in the value of an enterprise. By getting the opinion of what we call Global Investors with portfolios of holdings on every continent, McKinsey has importantly impacted the cost of capital for all corporations henceforth. Admittedly, McKinsey's criteria of "board governance" are blunt. "Every organization attempting to accomplish something has to ask and answer the following question," writes Harvard Business School professor Michael C. Jensen in the introduction to his recent working paper: "What are we trying to accomplish? Or, put even more simply: When all is said and done, how do we measure better versus worse? Even more simply: How do we keep score... . I say long-term market value to recognize that it is possible for markets not to know the full implications of a firm's policies until they begin to show up.... Value creation does not mean succumbing to the vagaries of the movements in a firm's values from day to day. The market is inevitably ignorant of many of our actions and opportunities, at least in the short run...". Surprisingly little attention is paid to what we all intuitively know, that talented people are not entirely motivated by financial compensation. Directors therefore must pay special attention to creating an appropriate environment for stimulating optimum management performance. [source]

A Monitoring Role for Deviations from Absolute Priority in Bankruptcy Resolution

FINANCIAL MARKETS, INSTITUTIONS & INSTRUMENTS, Issue 5 2003
By Dina Naples Layish
Firms that have successfully reorganized under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy laws of the United States frequently award shares of common stock in the reorganized firm to pre-bankruptcy shareholders, even though pre-bankruptcy creditors' claims are not fully satisfied. Using a sample of large publicly traded firms, these deviations from absolute priority (DAPR) are found to be positively related to the severity of agency costs within a financially distressed firm. US bankruptcy laws may exacerbate these agency costs by granting exclusivity to management during the reorganization period. Firms in which outside shareholders are more concentrated have a lower occurrence of DAPR indicating that blockholders provide an effective monitoring mechanism for controlling managerial behavior during reorganization. On the other hand, firms without this monitoring mechanism have a higher probability of DAPR indicating that creditors attempt to control managerial behavior by providing them with some sort of financial compensation via their equity holding in the firm. Finally, the evidence indicates that DAPR can be used to mitigate the hold-up problem resulting from voting rights granted to both junior and senior claimants of the firm by US bankruptcy laws. [source]

Financial Compensation for Victims of Catastrophes: A Law and Economics Perspective

Getting Even or Getting Equal?

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2009
Retributive Desires, Transitional Justice
This article examines the effect that different policy interventions of transitional justice have on the desires of the victims of human rights violations for retribution. The retributive desires assessed in this article are conceptualized as individual, collective, and abstract demands for the imposition of a commensurate degree of suffering upon the offender. We suggest a plausible way of reducing victims' retributive desires. Instead of "getting even" in relation to the suffering, victims and perpetrators may "get equal" in relation to their respective statuses, which were affected by political crimes. The article hypothesizes that the three classes of transitional justice: (1) reparation that empowers victims by financial compensation, truth telling, and social acknowledgment; (2) retribution that inflicts punishment upon perpetrators; and (3) reconciliation that renews civic relationship between victims and perpetrators through personal contact, apology, and forgiveness; each contributes to restoring equality between victims and perpetrators, and in so doing decreases the desires that victims have for retribution. In order to test our hypotheses, we conducted a survey of former political prisoners in the Czech Republic. Results from the regression analysis reveal that financial compensation, social acknowledgement, punishment, and forgiveness are likely to reduce victims' retributive desires. [source]

Severe asphyxia due to delivery-related malpractice in Sweden 1990,2005

BJOG : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS & GYNAECOLOGY, Issue 3 2008
S Berglund
Objective, To describe possible causes of delivery-related severe asphyxia due to malpractice. Design and setting, A nationwide descriptive study in Sweden. Population, All women asking for financial compensation because of suspected medical malpractice in connection with childbirth during 1990,2005. Method, We included infants with a gestational age of ,33 completed gestational weeks, a planned vaginal onset of delivery, reactive cardiotocography at admission for labour and severe asphyxia-related outcomes presumably due to malpractice. As asphyxia-related outcomes, we included cases of neonatal death and infants with diagnosed encephalopathy before the age of 28 days. Main outcome measure, Severe asphyxia due to malpractice during labour. Results, A total of 472 case records were scrutinised. One hundred and seventy-seven infants were considered to suffer from severe asphyxia due to malpractice around labour. The most common events of malpractice in connection with delivery were neglecting to supervise fetal wellbeing in 173 cases (98%), neglecting signs of fetal asphyxia in 126 cases (71%), including incautious use of oxytocin in 126 cases (71%) and choosing a nonoptimal mode of delivery in 92 cases (52%). Conclusion, There is a great need and a challenge to improve cooperation and to create security barriers within our labour units. The most common cause of malpractice is that stated guidelines for fetal surveillance are not followed. Midwives and obstetricians need to improve their shared understanding of how to act in cases of imminent fetal asphyxia and how to choose a timely and optimal mode of delivery. [source]