Accounting comparability and relative performance evaluation in CEO compensation

We investigate whether accounting comparability is associated with the likelihood that CEO compensation is tied to relative accounting performance (e.g., return on assets). We predict that higher accounting comparability increases the risk-sharing benefit of accounting-based RPE because peer firm performance better controls for common risk in RPE firm performance. Thus, firms that have higher accounting comparability with potential performance peers will be more likely to include accounting-based RPE as a component of the total CEO compensation contract. We find support for this prediction using (1) an explicit test design that relies on the ex ante terms of CEO compensation contracts obtained from proxy disclosures, and (2) an implicit design that relies on the actual realizations of CEO compensation. To provide further evidence, we examine the association between accounting comparability and the selection of performance peers when the CEO compensation contract includes an accounting-based RPE component. We find that higher comparability between the RPE firm and a potential peer firm increases (decreases) the potential peer firm’s likelihood of being selected into (dropped from) the peer group. Cross-sectional analyses show that this association is less pronounced, or not present, when the relative performance measure is price-based (as opposed to accounting-based), indicating that these results do not merely reflect a more general role of comparability in all RPE contracts.     

Do corporate governance mechanisms influence CEO compensation? An empirical investigation of UK companies

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of corporate governance mechanisms, that is, ownership and board structure of companies, on the level of CEO compensation for a sample of 414 large UK companies for the fiscal year 2003/2004. The results show that measures of board and ownership structures explain a significant amount of cross-sectional variation in the total CEO compensation, which is the sum of cash and equity-based compensation, after controlling other firm characteristics. We find that firms with larger board size and a higher proportion of non-executive directors on their boards pay their CEOs higher compensation, suggesting that non-executive directors are not more efficient in monitoring than executive directors. We also find that institutional ownership and block-holder ownership have a significant and negative impact on CEO compensation. Our results are consistent with the existence of active monitoring by block-holders and institutional shareholders. Finally, the results show that CEO compensation is lower when the directors’ ownership is higher.     

Accounting fundamentals and CEO bonus compensation

Research indicates that there is a positive association between accounting earnings and chief executive officer (CEO) cash compensation; however, evidence also suggests that this positive association ceases to exist when earnings performance is poor or declining. This latter result has led some critics of corporate compensation policies to conclude that CEOs are not penalized for poor or declining firm performance. The purpose of this study is to further illuminate the pay-performance debate by expanding the traditional executive bonus compensation model to include a set of accounting fundamentals that prior research indicates are related to both current and future firm performance. Our results indicate that there is a highly significant relationship between accounting fundamentals and the level of and change in CEO bonus compensation. Moreover, we find a highly significant relationship between accounting fundamentals and both bonus omissions and bonus reductions. When earnings are negative or declining, we find that the above relationships remain intact. In contrast, when earnings are negative or declining, we find that the relationship between aggregate earnings and bonus compensation is weak or insignificant in most of our analyses. Taken together, our results suggest that the apparently weak relationship between accounting earnings and CEO bonus compensation (particularly when earnings are negative or declining) is partly due to the fact that the bonus compensation model excludes accounting fundamentals which are strongly associated with bonus compensation. Thus, we conclude that (i) bonus compensation is more closely tied to firm performance than critics sometimes claim and (ii) bonus compensation awarded to CEOs when earnings performance is poor is at least partially explained by the presence of favorable accounting fundamentals.     

Institutional Monitoring and REIT CEO Compensation

Our objective in this paper is to investigate the relationship between institutional ownership and CEO compensation structure of REITs. Based on detailed analyses of data on institutional ownership, performance, CEO and board characteristics over the 10 year period 1998–2007, we find significant evidence that large institutions influence governance through CEO compensation—greater institutional ownership is associated with greater emphasis on incentive-based compensation (higher pay-performance sensitivity of CEO compensation), and higher cash and total compensation for CEOs. Further, we find that institutions are less active when managers are performing in a superior fashion. Two important conclusions emerge from the analysis. First, similar to unregulated firms, institutional owners do act as monitors in REITs. Broadly, this result suggests that governance is necessary for REITs. Second, institutional investors set a high pay-performance sensitivity for CEOs, but are willing to pay higher cash compensation to induce managers to take risk.     

The timing of changes in CEO compensation from cash bonus to equity-based compensation: Determinants and performance consequences

This study examines the determinants and performance consequences of changes in CEO compensation structure. The study uses the unique setting when Australian companies have changed from cash bonus to equity-based compensation. While most US CEOs receive some form of equity-based compensation, Australian CEOs have not always been paid equity-based compensation. According to efficient contracting theories, we argue that the change to equity-based compensation is driven by changes in firm characteristics and by the occurrence of CEO turnover, the latter of which provides a less costly opportunity for such change. Our results are consistent with the above arguments. We also document a significant negative association between changes in compensation structure and subsequent firm performance in the following year, even after controlling for CEO turnover and poor governance environments. Overall, our results suggest that the initial change to equity-based compensation is part of an error learning process made by firms that leads them towards efficient CEO compensation contracts.     

Securitization of corporate assets and executive compensation

We examine the effect of corporate asset-backed securitization on managerial compensation. We find that CEO compensation increases after securitization of corporate assets, which is consistent with two distinct theoretical views: (1) asset-backed securitization improves the efficiency of performance-based compensation as corporate performance becomes a better signal of managerial effort and (2) securitization of corporate assets mitigates liquidity constraints so that firms can make more efficient investments. We find that securitization primarily affects short-term accounting components (bonuses) and less equity-based components of the CEO's performance-based compensation. Further investigation reveals support for the second view of liquidity but not the first view of moral hazard. The results are robust to controlling for both possible self-selection biases associated with the decision to rely on asset-backed securitization as a means of external financing and simultaneity between executive compensation and financial decisions (securitization and leverage).     

Non-compensation-related consultant service and CEO compensation

This study examines how consultants’ non-compensation-related consulting service (NCS) affects the contractual usefulness of accounting and stock information in executive compensation, as reflected in pay-performance sensitivity. The hypothesis is based on anecdotal evidence suggesting that consultants’ provision of NCS is likely to adversely affect the quality of CEO compensation plans. We investigate whether the consultants providing NCS are involved in potential conflicts of interest. The results show that CEO pay is higher in companies where consultants provide NCS and have a higher NCS fee ratio. The pay-performance sensitivity in CEO compensation decreases when consultants engage in NCS. The overall results are consistent with NCS representing a conflict of interest and compromising the quality of compensation committees.     

CEO compensation,director compensation,and firm performance: Evidence of cronyism?

We model CEO and director compensation using firm characteristics, CEO characteristics, and governance variables. After controlling for monitoring proxies, we find a significant positive relationship between CEO and director compensation. We hypothesize that this relationship could be due to unobserved firm complexity (omitted variables), and/or to excess compensation of directors and managers. We also find evidence that excess compensation (both director and CEO) is associated with firm underperformance. We therefore conclude that the evidence is consistent with excessive compensation due to mutual back scratching or cronyism. The evidence suggests that excessive compensation has an effect on firm performance that is independent of the poor governance variables discussed by previous studies.     

Reductions in CEO career horizons and corporate policies

We provide evidence on the effect of personal shocks that reduce a CEO's expected career horizon on corporate policies. The timing of these events is not predictable based on observable characteristics, and affected CEOs experience greater turnover rates and shorter residual time-in-office. Following the shock, these firms moderate both R&D and capital expenditures and increase cash distributions. While these changes are consistent with greater short-term orientation, they are not detrimental to shareholders, as performance increases after the shock. Earnings management and firm risk remain unchanged, while both CEO total compensation and equity-based compensation decline. Overall, our results indicates that the improved performance comes from the implementation of more efficient firm policies, likely driven by an internal tournament effect after the shock rather than from opportunistic behavior.     

The efficiency of compensation contracting in China: Do better CEOs get better paid?

Over recent years, China adopted a number of ‘western-style’ reforms of corporate governance and executive compensation. We investigate whether boards of Chinese firms evaluate CEO ability and remunerate their CEOs accordingly, an essential tenet of efficient compensation contracting. Using Data Envelopment Analysis to measure CEO ability, we do not find any evidence that CEO ability matters in compensation contracting decisions—it does not lead to either higher pay, stronger pay-for-performance sensitivity, or a higher likelihood of equity grants. This is surprising, since we find evidence that higher ability CEOs achieve superior firm performance. In contrast, we find that powerful CEOs do not overperform, while they enjoy large abnormal pay. Overall, our results suggest that Chinese firms fail to embrace new corporate governance reforms and are unable to fully utilize the reforms’ benefits.

     

CEO tenure and the performance-turnover relation

In a broad cross-section of US firms, we document that the likelihood of a CEO’s performance-related dismissal declines in his tenure. This finding is consistent with both firm performance revealing information about a CEO’s uncertain executive ability and CEO tenure reflecting weak firm governance choices that reduce the likelihood of performance-related dismissal. In a sample of CEOs who begin their appointment during our sample period, we find evidence more broadly in favor of the former explanation. Specifically, we find that (1) CEO survival is associated with superior firm performance, (2) this relation is unaffected by firm governance choices, (3) the intensity with which a firm monitors its CEO declines over his tenure, and (4) firms’ monitoring intensity increases following CEO turnover. Collectively, our results suggest that periodic performance reports increasingly resolve uncertainty regarding executive ability, thereby lowering firm owners’ demand for monitoring their CEO over his tenure.     

CEO tenure,the risk of termination and firm value

We examine CEOs' risk of termination, its determinants and its effect on firm value. Using survival analysis, we find that the risk of termination increases for about thirteen years before decreasing slightly with CEO tenure; 82% of CEOs have tenure of less than thirteen years. We also find that tenure increases with performance and compensation and decreases with monitoring by the board. Changes in the risk of termination do not have a significant effect on firm value. Taken as a whole, our results are consistent with the view that corporate governance functions reasonably well for the vast majority of firms.     

Reexamining the managerial ownership effect on firm value

Whether equity-based compensation and equity ownership align the interests of managers with stockholders is an important question in finance. Early studies found an inverted U-shaped relation between managerial ownership and firm value, but later studies using firm fixed effects found no relation. Managerial ownership levels change very slowly over time which may mask an ownership effect on firm value when using a fixed effect model. This is due to a much smaller within firm variation than between firm variation. We demonstrate that using pay-performance semi-elasticity, rather than pay-performance sensitivity as a measure of managerial ownership incentives, results in meaningful variation within firm over time. The greater within firm variation increases the power to detect a relation between managerial ownership and firm value with fixed effect regressions. As in the early research on this issue, we find a significant inverted U-shaped relation between managerial ownership and Tobin's Q in fixed effects regressions and after controlling for endogeneity with both two-stage and three-stage least squares regressions. Our results are consistent with incentive alignment at low levels and risk aversion at high levels of managerial ownership.     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Corporate Performance,and Pay-Performance Sensitivity—Evidence from Shanghai Stock Exchange Social Responsibility Index

Based on annual data of listed companies on Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) through 2009–2013, this article examines three hypotheses: first, whether a firm’s taking corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects corporate performance; second, whether corporate governance and a firm’s age positively moderate the relationship between CSR and performance; and third, whether CSR positively moderates the magnitude/direction of linkage between a firm’s performance and top management/director compensation (pay-performance sensitivity, PPS). Three proxies for CSR engagement are constructed by a firm’s inclusion in the SSE Social Responsibility Index. Empirical evidence generally shows that firms engaging in CSR tend to obtain superior performance in terms of higher profitability. However, firm’s age and sound corporate governance have little additional benefit on the effect of a firm engaging in CSR on performance. Finally, greater CSR engagement is associated with larger PPS. Principal outcome does not shift under two-stage estimation and propensity score matching (PSM) to correct for sample self-selection of CSR engagement.     

The external effects of bank executive pay: Liquidity creation and systemic risk

We develop a conceptual framework that links the compensation incentives of bank executives to the risk and return externalities generated by banks but borne by society. Using 1994 to 2016 data from large U.S. commercial banks, we find that CEO pay-performance incentives reduce both negative systemic risk externalities and positive liquidity creation externalities, while pay-risk incentives increase both externalities. Our findings offer support for Federal Reserve guidelines that encourage greater reliance on long-term equity-based compensation, and they infer a regulatory tradeoff: Bank executive pay rules aimed at reducing systemic risk will result in reduced system-wide liquidity creation as well.     

Corporate governance and capital allocations of diversified firms

We examine how various aspects of corporate governance structures affect the capital allocation inefficiency that drives the value discounts of diversified firms. Diversified firms with more effective internal or external governance mechanisms experience more efficient investment allocations at both the firm and segment levels and show less of a diversification discount. The efficiency of the investment allocation process is better for diversified firms with high board independence, low board busyness, high institutional ownership, high outside director ownership, high CEO equity-based pay, high audit quality, and strong shareholder rights. The results hold after controlling for other potential influences. Our evidence suggests that corporate governance considerations are important in assessing the relation between investment efficiency and firm value for diversified firms.     

Staggered boards,corporate opacity and firm value

We explore the effect of corporate opacity on the relation between staggered boards and firm value. We find that through mitigating takeover pressure, staggered boards become increasingly beneficial to firm value as opacity increases. In addition, we document that staggered boards reduce value only in transparent firms. Additional tests indicate that, as opacity increases, staggered boards bear an increasingly positive relation to research and development and CEO pay-performance sensitivity. Taken together, these results suggest that corporate opacity affects the value impact of takeover protection.     

Corporate governance,external market discipline and firm productivity

Using a sample of Australian companies over the 2000–2005 period, we examine the impact of internal corporate governance on firm's total factor productivity, taking into account the interaction between internal governance and external market discipline. Our empirical findings point to a substitution effect between product market competitiveness and firm-level corporate governance. Overall, internal corporate governance mechanisms – more efficient boards and greater CEO stock-based compensation – are effective instruments for improving firm productivity. However, internal governance is less effective when a firm faces a highly competitive product market. We find only weak empirical support for an association between firm's ownership structure and productivity, and no support for an association between industry takeover intensity and firm productivity.     

The Roles of Performance Measures and Monitoring in Annual Governance Decisions in Entrepreneurial Firms

This paper analyzes annual corporate governance decisions at firms making initial public offerings (IPOs) of common stock between 1996 and 1999. Our objective is to examine relations between firms' corporate governance decisions and the informativeness of available measures of managerial performance. We consider financial measures such as earnings and stock return, as well as direct monitoring. We collect a sample of IPO firms from the manufacturing, Internet, and technology (non-Internet) industries, and examine how the use of various performance measures in annual compensation grants and turnover decisions varies with the information environment of the firm and with the extent of venture capital influence. Consistent with prior research that finds earnings are of limited usefulness in firm valuation for Internet firms, we find Internet firms place less importance on earnings and greater importance on stock returns in determining compensation grants than do non-Internet firms. We also find that compensation grants of firms with little or no venture capital influence display significantly stronger association with accounting and stock performance measures than those of firms with more intense monitoring by venture capitalists. This result is consistent with direct monitoring and the use of explicit performance measures acting as substitute governance mechanisms.     

Corporate culture and financial statement comparability

In this paper, I empirically examine the influence of corporate culture on the comparability of financial statements. I predict that firms with strong corporate cultures have less-opportunistic managers, who make homogenous decisions when faced with similar economic events, resulting in greater accounting comparability. For a sample of U.S. companies, I find empirical evidence consistent with this prediction: firms with strong corporate cultures have greater peer- and industry-level comparability. These results are robust to using an entropy-balanced sample, correcting for sample selection bias using Heckman's two-step procedure, and employing different measures of corporate culture strength. Further analysis reveals that sudden CEO turnovers that move firms towards (away from) a stronger corporate culture positively (negatively) influence post-turnover accounting comparability. My results provide new insights on the role of corporate culture for financial reporting.