Boards,Executive Excess Compensation,and Shared Power: Evidence from Nonprofit Firms

We investigate how executives, the board, and excess compensation jointly affect the performance of nonprofits. Since the common measure of nonprofit performance often includes salaries, we also use expenses that directly benefit the targeted population. Our results suggest that above average compensation for executives is associated with poor firm performance. However, the negative relation of CEO pay to performance occurs for firms with only one executive, the CEO. We conclude that a powerful CEO with autonomy can harm firm performance, but other executives can mitigate these agency problems. The board also appears to monitor direct community benefits more than indirect benefits.     

On REIT CEO Compensation: Does Board Structure Matter?

In a perfect world where the board of directors is independent of CEO influence, CEO pay-for-performance compensation contracts should be a function of performance only. If the CEO can influence board structure through his ownership of company stock or chairmanship of the board, however, performance contracts are sub-optimal and agency problems arise, which allow the CEO to extract rent and demand compensation in excess of the equilibrium level. As such, models of compensation contracts must include board and ownership structure variables, in addition to the traditional economic determinants. Our analyses with REITs corroborate this notion. Our data demonstrate that the structure of REIT boards are not independent of CEO influence, and significant agency problems exist allowing the CEO to design boards that reward him at the cost of shareholder wealth. CEO compensation in REITs depends significantly on the usual economic measures of performance including firm size and return on assets; more importantly, CEO compensation is higher in REITs where the board is weak in monitoring because of large size, and older directors; the effect of a blockholder is adverse, however. This study provides additional evidence to the growing literature that observed board structures are ineffective in monitoring and governance.     

The Relevance of Non-financial Performance Measures for CEO Compensation: Evidence from the Airline Industry

This paper investigates the role of non-financial performance measures in executive compensation. Using a sample of airline firms we document that passenger load factor, an important non-financial measure for firms in this industry, is positively associated with CEO cash compensation. This association is significant after controlling for traditional accounting performance measures (return on assets) and financial performance measures (stock returns). This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that non-financial measures provide incremental information about CEOs actions over financial measures and hence, receive a positive weight in compensation contracts. We also explore cross-sectional differences in the importance of non-financial performance measures. We find weak evidence that CEO power and the noise of financial performance measures impact the relationship between non-financial performance measures and cash compensation.JEL Classification: J33, L25, L93, M41, M52     

Pay me Right: Reference Values and Executive Compensation

This paper examines the importance of reference values for executive compensation contracts. We rely on a quasi‐experimental setting (the adoption of pay guidelines), and a well‐defined measure of individual‐specific reference values to provide evidence on how a change in CEO reference compensation leads to subsequent changes of actual pay. We find that executive compensation adjusts gradually towards the new reference values, and that the speed of the adjustment depends on the corporate governance characteristics: the firm ownership structure, the role of the State and of the employees in the firm decision making. These results provide empirical support for theoretical models of bargaining that take into account reference values.     

中国上市银行CEO报酬与银行绩效的关系

由于银行业在资本结构、监管等方面与一般企业存在显著区别,因此基于一般企业的公司治理结论是否适用于银行业值得商榷.本文采用2002～2006年上市银行样本,在充分考虑银行业特殊性的基础上,对银行CEO报酬与银行绩效间关系进行了实证分析.研究表明,由于银行业治理结构的特殊性,使其在CEO报酬对公司绩效影响方面,与一般企业存在显著区别.研究发现,银行CEO报酬对银行业绩有显著促进作用,而对股东权益却有相反影响.实证结果还表明,银行业绩和规模对银行CEO报酬有显著影响.     

Pensions as a Form of Executive Compensation

This paper investigates the role of pensions as an element of total executive compensation, and the relationship between pensions and performance‐based compensation in executive pay. Using hand‐collected data on FTSE 100 CEOs and senior executives from 2004?2011, we document that pensions function as a substitute for performance‐based compensation (primarily bonuses) in both cross‐sectional and time‐series settings. We also examine the effect of corporate governance characteristics on executive pensions. We find that corporate governance characteristics associated with stronger board monitoring play a constraining role on the magnitude of pensions. Our evidence of substitution effects between pensions and performance‐based compensation is consistent with a managerial power view of executive compensation‐setting, and the use of pensions as a ‘stealth’ element of compensation. Our findings are robust to considering different types of pensions, product market competition, and cross‐listing. Sub‐period analysis shows that pensions decrease and substitution effects weaken following the 2008 financial crisis. Moreover, we find no evidence that the use of compensation consultants with potential conflicts of interest is associated with higher pensions. Overall, our study contributes to a greater understanding of the role of pensions in executive compensation, and shows the importance of including pensions in analysis of executive compensation.     

Executive Compensation Tied to ESG Performance: International Evidence

Using a wide sample of international publicly traded firms, this paper studies the rapidly increasing practice of incorporating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) metrics in executive compensation contracts. Our evidence suggests that this compensation practice varies at the country, industry, and firm levels in ways that are consistent with efficient incentive contracting. We also observe that reliance on ESG metrics in executive compensation arrangements is associated with engagement, voting, and trading by institutional investors, which suggests that firms could be adopting this practice to align their management's objectives with the preferences of certain shareholder groups. Finally, we find that the adoption of ESG Pay is accompanied by improvements in key ESG outcomes, but not by improvements in financial performance.     

Market Valuation Effect of Foreign Asset Divestitures in an Emerging Economy: Korean Evidence

We find evidence that foreign asset divestitures announced by Korean listed firms lead to a decrement in firm value. Interestingly the divestiture announcements by firms with a large proportion of institutional investors, who hold advanced professionalism in stock investments, contribute to an increment in firm value, but ones by firms with a large proportion of individual investors lead to a decrement in it. Unlike the case of firms in advanced countries, our distinctive finding that the divestiture announcements produce a decrement in firm value around the announcement day sheds new lights on market valuation effects of foreign asset divestitures of firms in other emerging economies.     

Financial Leverage,CEO Compensation,and Corporate Hedging: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

This paper studies the determinants of corporate hedging practices in the REIT industry between 1999 and 2001. We find a positive significant relation between hedging and financial leverage, indicating the financial distress costs motive for using derivatives in the REIT industry. Using estimates of the Black–Scholes sensitivity of CEO’s stock option portfolios to stock return volatility and the sensitivity of CEO’s stock and stock option portfolios to stock price, we find evidence to support managerial risk aversion motive for corporate hedging in the REIT industry. Our results indicate that CEO’s cash compensation and the CEO’s wealth sensitivity to stock return volatility are significant determinants of derivative use in REITs. We also document a significant positive relation between institutional ownership and hedging activity. Further, we find that probability of hedging is related to economies of scale in hedging costs.

Chief Audit Executive as Supervisory Board Member and Executive Compensation Contracts

This paper studies a unique phenomenon in China's corporate governance—that chief audit executives (CAEs) sit on supervisory boards (CAE duality)—and examines its effects on executive compensation contracts. Using a sample of listed firms between 2010 and 2018, we find a significant positive relation between CAE duality and pay-for-performance sensitivity, which suggests that the dual position helps integrate monitoring resources and reduces agency costs. This positive relation is more pronounced when companies face a stricter monitoring environment and in non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) than in SOEs. In addition, we find that the recent reforms on compensation strengthen the role of CAE duality in SOEs. Further analysis identifies the reliability of performance information (i.e., earnings quality) and reduced executive self-interested behaviours (i.e., perquisite consumption) as the influencing mechanisms that increase the demand for performance-based compensation and thus improve pay-for-performance sensitivity.     

上市公司薪酬委员会有效性与高管薪酬研究——基于“有效契约论”与“管理权力论”的比较分析

"有效契约论"把高管激励契约看成重要的公司治理机制,有效的薪酬激励机制可以协调股东和高管的利益冲突,实现股东财富最大化。"管理权力论"则认为,高管对自己的薪酬安排有很大影响,可以利用自身权力以多种方式进行寻租。本文针对高管激励的上述两种假说,结合我国的制度背景,从上市公司设立薪酬委员会的动因、薪酬委员会对高管薪酬安排的影响两方面展开研究。以2001年至2008年深沪两市的上市公司作为研究样本,通过实证分析,我们发现,如果潜在代理成本越高,公司就越可能设立薪酬委员会,这与有效契约论的预期一致;同时,薪酬委员会的设立增强了薪酬-业绩敏感度。研究结论对健全薪酬委员会制度、有效发挥高管薪酬契约的激励作用以及规范上市公司治理具有借鉴意义。     

CEO Compensation and Firm Performance: an Empirical Investigation of UK Panel Data

This paper examines the link between CEO pay and performance employing a unique, hand‐collected panel data set of 390 UK non‐financial firms from the FTSE All Share Index for the period 1999–2005. We include both cash (salary and bonus) and equity‐based (stock options and long‐term incentive plans) components of CEO compensation, and CEO wealth based on share holdings, stock option and stock awards holdings in our analysis. In addition, we control for a comprehensive set of corporate governance variables. The empirical results show that in comparison to the previous findings for US CEOs, pay‐performance elasticity for UK CEOs seems to be lower; pay‐performance elasticity for UK CEOs is 0.075 (0.095) for cash compensation (total direct compensation), indicating that a ten percentage increase in shareholder return corresponds to an increase of 0.75% (0.95%) in cash (total direct) compensation. We also find that both the median share holdings and stock‐based pay‐performance sensitivity are lower for UK CEOs when we compare our findings with the previous findings for US CEOs. Thus, our results suggest that corporate governance reports in the UK, such as the Greenbury Report (1995) that proposed CEO compensation be more closely linked to performance, have not been totally effective. Our findings also indicate that institutional ownership has a positive and significant influence on CEO pay‐performance sensitivity of option grants. Finally, we find that longer CEO tenure is associated with lower pay‐performance sensitivity of option grants suggesting the entrenchment effect of CEO tenure.     

Employability and Wage Compensation in an Asian Economy: Evidence for Female College Graduates in Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of employability skills on wage compensation for female college graduates in Taiwan. We find that employability skills can explain some variation in wage compensation whether we include conventional human capital variables or not. For example, the career management skills category exhibits a consistent and significant influence on wage compensation and could raise the earnings level by 5–6 percent. In addition, employability skills have more diverse effects on wage compensation across various occupations, while conventional human capital variables are shown to have more consistent effects on wage compensation across occupations.     

The Effect of the Mandatory Adoption of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Executive Compensation

This study investigates empirically the effect of corporate governance principles on executive compensation and firm performance prior to and after the adoption of the first Greek Law on corporate governance. Prior to the adoption of the law, managers were not compensated in line with their performance. Since its introduction, a significant link has been observed between executive compensation and company performance as measured by accounting measures of performance. Following the adoption of corporate governance principles by law, the main mechanism that controls executive compensation is the election of independent non-executive board members. The results are robust to alternative accounting measures of performance.     

Executive Compensation in UK Property Companies

We study the drivers of executive compensation in the listed UK property sector. The UK provides an excellent opportunity to analyze executive compensation due to high transparency in the different components of executive compensation. We show that company size is the most important variable in explaining the level of executive compensation. We find that absolute and relative share performance significantly explains long-term compensation, that management style has a distinct influence on the level of executive compensation, and that using alternative monitoring mechanisms (institutional shareholders, debtholders, and outside directors) leads to higher levels of long-term incentives. We find only weak evidence of pay-performance sensitivity for both cash and long-term compensation. Executive shareholdings provide a much stronger link between pay and performance than does executive compensation.

CEO compensation contagion: Evidence from an exogenous shock

We examine how Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation increased at a subset of firms in response to a governance shock that affected compensation levels at other firms in the economy. We first show that Delaware-incorporated firms with staggered boards and no outside blockholders increased CEO compensation following the mid-1990s Delaware legal cases that strengthened their ability to resist hostile takeovers. Consistent with the Gabaix and Landier (2008) contagion hypothesis, non-Delaware firms subsequently increased CEO compensation when the rulings affected a substantial number of firms in their industries. We further show how these legal developments contributed significantly to the rapid increase in CEO compensation in the late 1990s.     

高管薪酬与公司业绩实证研究——以中小企业板上市公司为例

选取2009年前上市的235家中小企业板上市公司2013年的年报数据,实证检验高管薪酬与公司业绩之间的相关性。结果表明：中小企业板上市公司高管薪酬与公司业绩、公司规模存在显著正相关关系,高管薪酬与资本结构之间存在显著负相关关系。     

Governance and Performance Implications of Diversification Strategies: Evidence from Large U.S. Firms

Recent research focuses on explaining the diversification discount. However, there is little direct evidence regarding the relation among ownership structure, corporate governance, and corporate diversification. The results in this paper suggest that agency issues do not account for firms adopting a particular diversification strategy. Also, the performance consequences of the shift in the diversification strategy and the subsequent changes in institutional and block ownership structures are not related to agency issues. In fact, investors seem not to avoid diversified firms per se. We suggest that observed board and ownership differences between diversified and focused firms are due to their being at different stages of corporate evolution.     

The Importance of Board Quality in the Event of a CEO Death

We examine board quality and executive replacement decisions around deaths of senior executives. Stock price reactions to executive deaths are positively related to board independence. Controlling for such factors as the deceased's stockholdings, outside blockholdings, board size, and whether the deceased was a founder, board independence is the most significant factor explaining abnormal returns. Board independence is particularly important when there is no apparent successor and firm performance is poor. The results are consistent with independent boards being reluctant to discipline poorly performing incumbent managers, but nevertheless using the opportunity of an executive death to improve the quality of management.     

Trading Better Versus Making More: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Using transaction data from Egypt, we examined the controversy over which investor—domestic or foreign—has superior trading performance in emerging markets. We account for informational and behavioral differences across investors by classifying them by origin and type and comparing their performance in trade execution versus profitability. Domestic institutions execute trades at the best prices with the greatest advantage against foreign institutions. This advantage is reduced when foreign institutions focus on large firms and trades. Profitability analysis revealed, however, that domestic investors accrue significant losses against foreign investors, suggesting that trading better does not necessarily translate into making more money.