Directors' remuneration disclosure and remuneration committee: evidence from Australasia

We examine whether the directors' remuneration disclosure level varies in association with key corporate governance attributes. We propose the theoretical assumptions and empirical evidence on how remuneration committee presence, non-executive directors sitting on remuneration committees and foreign national subsidiaries can influence firm remuneration disclosure among selected Eastern emerging and developed economies given their differential characteristics. We collected data from 450 companies listed on the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX), Bursa Malaysia and Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) for the periods from 2014 to 2018. We find that the level of the remuneration disclosure index is significantly impacted by the presence of remuneration committees across firms and the proportion of non-executive directors sitting on the remuneration committee. Furthermore, foreign subsidiaries which experience increased agency problems due to spatial complexities and increased liabilities of foreignness do not have superior disclosure levels of director remuneration.