Relative performance evaluation and executive compensation: Evidence from Chinese listed companies

This paper focuses on the effect of relative performance evaluation (RPE) on top managers’ compensation in Chinese public firms. Overall, we find no evidence of an RPE effect or any asymmetry in firms’ use of RPE. The results obtained using Albuquerque’s (2009) method are similar to those obtained using traditional methods. In addition, we find that RPE is used more in non-SOEs than in SOEs. This may be due to the regulation of compensation, various forms of incentives and the multiple tasks of managers in SOEs.