IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v109y2020icp425-439.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

One dollar CEOs

Author

Listed:
  • Loureiro, Gilberto
  • Makhija, Anil K.
  • Zhang, Dan

Abstract

We study the impact of $1 CEO salaries on firm performance and CEO total compensation. We find that, on average, $1 CEO firms earn higher total compensation and lower stock market returns relative to their peers after the adoption of $1 salaries. The effect on total compensation is mitigated if the $1 CEO firm is undergoing restructuring or the CEO is entrenched and aggravated if the CEO is overconfident. The stock market underperformance especially affects firms not under a restructuring process and firms with entrenched or overconfident CEOs.

Suggested Citation

  • Loureiro, Gilberto & Makhija, Anil K. & Zhang, Dan, 2020. "One dollar CEOs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 425-439.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:109:y:2020:i:c:p:425-439
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296319307611
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.086?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell, Mark L & Stafford, Erik, 2000. "Managerial Decisions and Long-Term Stock Price Performance," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 73(3), pages 287-329, July.
    2. Vidhi Chhaochharia & Yaniv Grinstein, 2009. "CEO Compensation and Board Structure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 231-261, February.
    3. Fama, Eugene F & Jensen, Michael C, 1983. "Agency Problems and Residual Claims," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 327-349, June.
    4. James B. Wade & Charles A. O'Reilly & Timothy G. Pollock, 2006. "Overpaid CEOs and Underpaid Managers: Fairness and Executive Compensation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(5), pages 527-544, October.
    5. John A. Pearce & D. Keith Robbins, 1994. "Retrenchment remains the foundation of business turnaround," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 407-417, June.
    6. Cronqvist, Henrik & Makhija, Anil K. & Yonker, Scott E., 2012. "Behavioral consistency in corporate finance: CEO personal and corporate leverage," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 20-40.
    7. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Fried, Jesse & Walker, David I, 2002. "Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3558, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Ulrike Malmendier & Geoffrey Tate, 2005. "CEO Overconfidence and Corporate Investment," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(6), pages 2661-2700, December.
    9. Nathan J. Hiller & Donald C. Hambrick, 2005. "Conceptualizing executive hubris: the role of (hyper‐)core self‐evaluations in strategic decision‐making," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 297-319, April.
    10. Jaffe, Jeffrey F, 1974. "Special Information and Insider Trading," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(3), pages 410-428, July.
    11. Christine Moorman & Simone Wies & Natalie Mizik & Fredrika J. Spencer, 2012. "Firm Innovation and the Ratchet Effect Among Consumer Packaged Goods Firms," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(6), pages 934-951, November.
    12. Burke, Andrew & Millán, José María & Román, Concepción & van Stel, André, 2018. "Exploring the impact of different types of prior entrepreneurial experience on employer firm performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 107-122.
    13. Steven N. Kaplan, 1993. "The Staying Power Of Leveraged Buyouts," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 6(1), pages 15-24, March.
    14. Edward I. Altman, 2013. "Predicting financial distress of companies: revisiting the Z-Score and ZETA® models," Chapters, in: Adrian R. Bell & Chris Brooks & Marcel Prokopczuk (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Finance, chapter 17, pages 428-456, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Vincent L. Barker , III & George C. Mueller, 2002. "CEO Characteristics and Firm R&D Spending," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(6), pages 782-801, June.
    16. Ingolf Dittmann & Ernst Maug, 2007. "Lower Salaries and No Options? On the Optimal Structure of Executive Pay," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(1), pages 303-343, February.
    17. Guoli Chen & Craig Crossland & Shuqing Luo, 2015. "Making the same mistake all over again: CEO overconfidence and corporate resistance to corrective feedback," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1513-1535, October.
    18. Robert Gibbons, 1998. "Incentives in Organizations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 115-132, Fall.
    19. Yi Tang & Cuili Qian & Guoli Chen & Rui Shen, 2015. "How CEO hubris affects corporate social (ir)responsibility," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(9), pages 1338-1357, September.
    20. Matthew Blackwell & Stefano Iacus & Gary King & Giuseppe Porro, 2009. "cem: Coarsened exact matching in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(4), pages 524-546, December.
    21. Kaplan, Steven, 1989. "The effects of management buyouts on operating performance and value," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 217-254.
    22. Weisbach, Michael S., 1988. "Outside directors and CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 431-460, January.
    23. Sophia J. W. Hamm & Michael J. Jung & Clare Wang, 2015. "Making Sense of One Dollar CEO Salaries," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 941-972, September.
    24. Malmendier, Ulrike & Tate, Geoffrey, 2008. "Who makes acquisitions? CEO overconfidence and the market's reaction," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 20-43, July.
    25. Simon Gervais & J. B. Heaton & Terrance Odean, 2011. "Overconfidence, Compensation Contracts, and Capital Budgeting," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1735-1777, October.
    26. Steve Sauerwald & Zhiang (John) Lin & Mike W. Peng, 2016. "Board social capital and excess CEO returns," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 498-520, March.
    27. Barber, Brad M. & Lyon, John D., 1997. "Detecting long-run abnormal stock returns: The empirical power and specification of test statistics," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 341-372, March.
    28. Bryson, Alex & Dorsett, Richard & Purdon, Susan, 2002. "The use of propensity score matching in the evaluation of active labour market policies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4993, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    29. Katherine Guthrie & Jan Sokolowsky & Kam‐Ming Wan, 2012. "CEO Compensation and Board Structure Revisited," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 1149-1168, June.
    30. Murphy, Kevin J., 1999. "Executive compensation," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 38, pages 2485-2563, Elsevier.
    31. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Predation, reputation, and entry deterrence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 280-312, August.
    32. Adam J. Wowak & Donald C. Hambrick, 2010. "A model of person‐pay interaction: how executives vary in their responses to compensation arrangements," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(8), pages 803-821, August.
    33. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2485-2563 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Sam Y. Cho & Jonathan D. Arthurs & David M. Townsend & Douglas R. Miller & Jeffrey Q. Barden, 2016. "Performance deviations and acquisition premiums: The impact of CEO celebrity on managerial risk‐taking," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(13), pages 2677-2694, December.
    35. Sidney Finkelstein & Donald C. Hambrick, 1988. "Chief executive compensation: A synthesis and reconciliation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(6), pages 543-558, November.
    36. Fama, Eugene F., 1998. "Market efficiency, long-term returns, and behavioral finance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 283-306, September.
    37. J B Heaton, 2002. "Managerial Optimism and Corporate Finance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 31(2), Summer.
    38. Adair Morse & Vikram Nanda & Amit Seru, 2011. "Are Incentive Contracts Rigged by Powerful CEOs?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1779-1821, October.
    39. Berger, Philip G & Ofek, Eli & Yermack, David L, 1997. "Managerial Entrenchment and Capital Structure Decisions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1411-1438, September.
    40. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    41. David Hirshleifer & Angie Low & Siew Hong Teoh, 2012. "Are Overconfident CEOs Better Innovators?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(4), pages 1457-1498, August.
    42. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    43. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation," Scholarly Articles 29407535, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    44. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2003. "Managing with Style: The Effect of Managers on Firm Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1169-1208.
    45. Caroline Flammer & Pratima Bansal, 2017. "Does a long-term orientation create value? Evidence from a regression discontinuity," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(9), pages 1827-1847, September.
    46. Carhart, Mark M, 1997. "On Persistence in Mutual Fund Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 57-82, March.
    47. Lucian Bebchuk & Jesse Fried, 2002. "Power, rent extraction, and executive compensation," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(03), pages 23-28, October.
    48. Dittmann, Ingolf & Maug, Ernst & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Restricting CEO pay," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1200-1220, September.
    49. Gilson, Stuart C & Vetsuypens, Michael R, 1993. "CEO Compensation in Financially Distressed Firms: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(2), pages 425-458, June.
    50. Core, John E. & Holthausen, Robert W. & Larcker, David F., 1999. "Corporate governance, chief executive officer compensation, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 371-406, March.
    51. Fama, Eugene F, et al, 1969. "The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February.
    52. Yi Tang & Daniel Z. Mack & Guoli Chen, 2018. "The differential effects of CEO narcissism and hubris on corporate social responsibility," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(5), pages 1370-1387, May.
    53. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    54. Lippert, Robert L. & Porter, Gayle, 1997. "Understanding CEO pay: A test of two pay-to-performance sensitivity measures with alternative measures of alignment and influence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 127-138, October.
    55. M. V. Shyam Kumar & Jaya Dixit & Bill Francis, 2015. "The impact of prior stock market reactions on risk taking in acquisitions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(13), pages 2111-2121, December.
    56. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1993. "Common risk factors in the returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-56, February.
    57. Guoli Chen, 2015. "Initial compensation of new CEOs hired in turnaround situations," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(12), pages 1895-1917, December.
    58. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January.
    59. Tracy Yue Wang & Andrew Winton & Xiaoyun Yu, 2010. "Corporate Fraud and Business Conditions: Evidence from IPOs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(6), pages 2255-2292, December.
    60. Garen, John E, 1994. "Executive Compensation and Principal-Agent Theory," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1175-1199, December.
    61. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    62. Manski, Charles F & Lerman, Steven R, 1977. "The Estimation of Choice Probabilities from Choice Based Samples," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(8), pages 1977-1988, November.
    63. Mathew L. A. Hayward & Violina P. Rindova & Timothy G. Pollock, 2004. "Believing one's own press: the causes and consequences of CEO celebrity," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(7), pages 637-653, July.
    64. Mikko Manner, 2010. "The Impact of CEO Characteristics on Corporate Social Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 53-72, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Borgholthaus, Cameron J. & Iyer, Dinesh N. & O'Brien, Jonathan P., 2021. "The effects of firm aspirational performance on changes in leadership structure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 319-327.
    2. Jennifer Kunz & Lara Sonnenholzner, 2023. "Managerial overconfidence: promoter of or obstacle to organizational resilience?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 67-128, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Loureiro, Gilberto & Makhija, Anil K. & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Why Do Some CEOs Work for a One-Dollary Salary?," Working Paper Series 2011-7, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    2. An, Suwei, 2023. "Essays on incentive contracts, M&As, and firm risk," Other publications TiSEM dd97d2f5-1c9d-47c5-ba62-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Peter Jaskiewicz & Joern H. Block & James G. Combs & Danny Miller, 2017. "The Effects of Founder and Family Ownership on Hired CEOs’ Incentives and Firm Performance," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(1), pages 73-103, January.
    4. Hillegeist, Stephen A. & Peñalva, Fernando, 2004. "Stock option incentives and firm performance," IESE Research Papers D/535, IESE Business School.
    5. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    6. Bharati, Rakesh & Doellman, Thomas & Fu, Xudong, 2016. "CEO confidence and stock returns," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 89-110.
    7. Camelia M. Kuhnen & Alexandra Niessen, 2012. "Public Opinion and Executive Compensation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(7), pages 1249-1272, July.
    8. Jean Canil & Bruce Rosser, 2015. "Evidence on exercise pricing in CEO option grants in two countries," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 383-410, November.
    9. Chen, Jie & Song, Wei & Goergen, Marc, 2019. "Passing the dividend baton: The impact of dividend policy on new CEOs' initial compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 458-481.
    10. Hongfei Tang, 2014. "Are CEO stock option grants optimal? Evidence from family firms and non-family firms around the Sarbanes–Oxley Act," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 251-292, February.
    11. Huiqi Gan, 2019. "Does CEO managerial ability matter? Evidence from corporate investment efficiency," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 1085-1118, May.
    12. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2485-2563 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ji, Jiao & Talavera, Oleksandr & Yin, Shuxing, 2016. "CEO Dismissal, Compensation and Topics of Board Meetings: The Case of China," MPRA Paper 70232, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Michel, Allen & Oded, Jacob & Shaked, Israel, 2014. "Ownership structure and performance: Evidence from the public float in IPOs," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 54-61.
    15. Hwang, Hyoseok (David) & Kim, Hyun-Dong & Kim, Taeyeon, 2020. "The blind power: Power-led CEO overconfidence and M&A decision making," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    16. Aktas, Nihat & Louca, Christodoulos & Petmezas, Dimitris, 2019. "CEO overconfidence and the value of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 85-106.
    17. Randy Beavers & Shawn Mobbs, 2020. "Director overconfidence," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 389-422, June.
    18. James, Hui & Benson, Bradley W. & Wu, Chen (Ken), 2017. "Does CEO ownership affect payout policy? Evidence from using CEO scaled wealth-performance sensitivity," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 328-345.
    19. Schwert, G. William, 2003. "Anomalies and market efficiency," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 939-974, Elsevier.
    20. Malcolm Baker & Richard S. Ruback & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2004. "Behavioral Corporate Finance: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 10863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Chen, Sheng-Syan & Hsu, Ching-Yu & Huang, Chia-Wei, 2016. "The white squire defense: Evidence from private investments in public equity," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 16-35.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:109:y:2020:i:c:p:425-439. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.