New finance researcher on the front page of FT

Konrad F. Raff who starts working as an assistant professor at the Department of Finance at NHH in August, was noted on the front page of Financial Times last week.

02.05.2014 - Ed.

With the title «Corporate knights avoid long knives in pursuit of honours», Konrad F. Raffstentative unpublished article Knighthoods, Damehoods and CEO Behaviour (with Linus Siming) is noted on the front page of Financial Times.

Could it be that chief executives who accept a knighthood are doing so at the expense of shareholder returns?, Financial Times asks to Raff and his researcher colleague`s findings. Yes, obviously, says the researchers.

Raff and his colleagues looked at companies in New Zealand, which abolished knighthoods and damehoods in 2000 before reinstating them in 2009. They found that when chief executives knew there was no chance of an honour they cut costs to improve their bottom lines.

«We knew chief executives cared about non-monetary rewards, but we didn't know just how much it affected their behavior», according to Financial Times.

Other articles written by Raff: Performance Pay, CEO Dismissal and the Dual Role of Takeovers (with Mike Burkart) og The Elimination of Broker Voting in Director Elections (with Ali Akyol and Patrick Verwijmeren)

Konrad F. Raff is now Associate Professor at the Department of Finance, VU University Amsterdam. From 2009 to 2011, Raff was Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for Financial Research (SIFR), Stockholm. Raff has a PhD in economics from Toulouse School of Economics in France, with the thesis Three Essays on the Theory of Corporate Governance.