We argue that risk sharing motivates the bankwide structure of bonus pay. In the presence of financial frictions that make external financing costly, the optimal contract between shareholders and employees involves some degree of risk sharing whereby bonus pay partially absorbs negative earnings shocks. Using payroll data for 1.26 million employee-years in all functional divisions of Austrian, German, and Swiss banks, we uncover several empirical patterns in bonus pay that are difficult to rationalize exclusively with incentive theories of bonus pay but that support an important risk sharing motive.

中文翻译：

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银行红利支付作为风险分担合同

我们认为风险分担促进了银行范围内的奖金支付结构。在存在使外部融资成本高昂的金融摩擦的情况下，股东与员工之间的最佳合同涉及一定程度的风险分担，其中奖金支付部分地吸收了负面收益冲击。使用奥地利、德国和瑞士银行所有职能部门的 126 万员工年的工资数据，我们发现了几种奖金支付的经验模式，这些模式很难仅用奖金支付的激励理论来合理化，但支持重要的风险分担动机.