IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/11385.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ceo Pay And The Rise Of Relative Performance Contracts: A Question Of Governance?

Author

Listed:
  • Van Reenen, John
  • Bell, Brian

Abstract

Would moving to relative performance contracts improve the alignment between CEO pay and performance? To address this we exploit the large rise in relative performance awards and the share of equity pay in the UK over the last two decades. Using new employer-employee matched datasets we find that the CEO pay-performance relationship remains asymmetric: pay responds more to increases in shareholders’ return performance than to decreases. Further, this asymmetry is stronger when governance appears weak. Second, there is substantial “pay-for-luck†as remuneration increases with random positive shocks, even when the CEO has equity awards that explicitly condition on firm performance relative to peer firms in the same sector. A reason why relative performance pay fails to deal with pay for luck is that CEOs who fail to meet the terms of their past performance awards are able to obtain more generous new equity rewards in the future. Moreover, this “compensation effect†is stronger when the firm has weak corporate governance. These findings suggest that reforms to the formal structure of CEO pay contracts are unlikely to align incentives in the absence of strong shareholder governance.

Suggested Citation

  • Van Reenen, John & Bell, Brian, 2016. "Ceo Pay And The Rise Of Relative Performance Contracts: A Question Of Governance?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11385, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11385
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP11385
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    2. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "The Other Side of the Trade-off: The Impact of Risk on Executive Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 65-105, February.
    3. David Card & Francesco Devicienti & Agata Maida, 2014. "Rent-sharing, Holdup, and Wages: Evidence from Matched Panel Data," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 84-111.
    4. Luigi Guiso & Luigi Pistaferri & Fabiano Schivardi, 2005. "Insurance within the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 1054-1087, October.
    5. John Calhoun Baker, 1939. "Executive Compensation Payments by Large and Small Industrial Companies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 53(3), pages 404-434.
    6. Ian Gregory‐Smith & Steve Thompson & Peter W. Wright, 2009. "Fired or Retired? A Competing Risks Analysis of Chief Executive Turnover," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 463-481, March.
    7. Ryan, Harley Jr. & Wiggins, Roy III, 2004. "Who is in whose pocket? Director compensation, board independence, and barriers to effective monitoring," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 497-524, September.
    8. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    9. Elhanan Helpman & Oleg Itskhoki & Stephen Redding, 2010. "Inequality and Unemployment in a Global Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(4), pages 1239-1283, July.
    10. Michael Faulkender & Jun Yang, 2013. "Is Disclosure an Effective Cleansing Mechanism? The Dynamics of Compensation Peer Benchmarking," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(3), pages 806-839.
    11. Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "Information Disclosure and Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(1), pages 195-234, February.
    12. JOSEPH A. McCAHERY & ZACHARIAS SAUTNER & LAURA T. STARKS, 2016. "Behind the Scenes: The Corporate Governance Preferences of Institutional Investors," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 71(6), pages 2905-2932, December.
    13. O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), 1999. "Handbook of Labor Economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 3, number 3.
    14. John A. Abowd & Thomas Lemieux, 1993. "The Effects of Product Market Competition on Collective Bargaining Agreements: The Case of Foreign Competition in Canada," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(4), pages 983-1014.
    15. N/A, 2016. "The UK Economy," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 236(1), pages 49-49, May.
    16. 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.
    17. Florian Hoffmann & Sebastian Pfeil, 2010. "Reward for Luck in a Dynamic Agency Model," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(9), pages 3329-3345.
    18. Marianne Bertrand, 2004. "From the Invisible Handshake to the Invisible Hand? How Import Competition Changes the Employment Relationship," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 723-766, October.
    19. 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.
    20. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    21. Patrick Kline & Neviana Petkova & Heidi Williams & Owen Zidar, 2019. "Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1343-1404.
    22. N/A, 2016. "The UK Economy," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 235(1), pages 3-3, February.
    23. Brian J. Hall & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 1998. "Are CEOs Really Paid Like Bureaucrats?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 653-691.
    24. Garvey, Gerald T. & Milbourn, Todd T., 2006. "Asymmetric benchmarking in compensation: Executives are rewarded for good luck but not penalized for bad," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 197-225, October.
    25. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    26. David G. Blanchflower & Andrew J. Oswald & Peter Sanfey, 1996. "Wages, Profits, and Rent-Sharing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(1), pages 227-251.
    27. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2001. "Are CEOs Rewarded for Luck? The Ones Without Principals Are," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(3), pages 901-932.
    28. Jarrad Harford & Kai Li, 2007. "Decoupling CEO Wealth and Firm Performance: The Case of Acquiring CEOs," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(2), pages 917-949, April.
    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. Lucas W. Davis and Catherine Hausman, 2020. "Are Energy Executives Rewarded for Luck?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 6), pages 157-180.
    2. Fernando Núñez & Ángel Arcos-Vargas & Carlos Usabiaga & Pablo Álvarez-de-Toledo, 2022. "On directors’ compensation: a multilevel analysis of Spanish listed companies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 2173-2207, October.
    3. Clement Olalekan Olaniyi & Olaolu Richard Olayeni, 2020. "A new perspective into the relationship between CEO pay and firm performance: evidence from Nigeria’s listed firms," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 22(2), pages 250-277, December.
    4. Sonia B. Di Giannatale & Itza Tlaloc Quetzalcoatl Curiel-Cabral & Genaro Basulto, 2023. "The Dynamics of Bargaining Power in a Principal-Agent Model," Working Papers DTE 630, CIDE, División de Economía.
    5. Tore Ellingsen & Eirik Gaard Kristiansen, 2022. "Fair and Square: A Retention Model of Managerial Compensation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(5), pages 3604-3624, May.
    6. Propper, Carol & Janke, Katharina & Sadun, Raffaella, 2019. "The Impact of CEOs in the Public Sector: Evidence from the English NHS," CEPR Discussion Papers 13726, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Katharina Janke & Carol Propper & Raffaella Sadun, 2019. "The Role of Top Managers in the Public Sector: Evidence from the English NHS," NBER Working Papers 25853, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    2. Albuquerque, Ana, 2009. "Peer firms in relative performance evaluation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 69-89, October.
    3. Edmans, Alex & Gosling, Tom & Jenter, Dirk, 2023. "CEO compensation: Evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    4. Brian Bell & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Firm Performance and Wages: Evidence from Across the Corporate Hierarchy," CEP Discussion Papers dp1088, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    6. Miguel Antón & Florian Ederer & Mireia Giné & Martin Schmalz, 2023. "Common Ownership, Competition, and Top Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(5), pages 1294-1355.
    7. Ryan T. Ball & Jonathan Bonham & Thomas Hemmer, 2020. "Does it pay to ‘Be Like Mike’? Aspiratonal peer firms and relative performance evaluation," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 1507-1541, December.
    8. Bizjak, John M. & Lemmon, Michael L. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2008. "Does the use of peer groups contribute to higher pay and less efficient compensation?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 152-168, November.
    9. Daniel Beck & Gunther Friedl & Peter Schäfer, 2020. "Executive compensation in Germany," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(5), pages 787-824, June.
    10. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    11. Zhiguo He & Si Li & Bin Wei & Jianfeng Yu, 2014. "Uncertainty, Risk, and Incentives: Theory and Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(1), pages 206-226, January.
    12. Patrick Kline & Neviana Petkova & Heidi Williams & Owen Zidar, 2019. "Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1343-1404.
    13. Yaowen Shan & Terry Walter, 2016. "Towards a Set of Design Principles for Executive Compensation Contracts," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 52(4), pages 619-684, December.
    14. Chongwoo Choe & Gloria Tian & Xiangkang Yin, 2008. "Managerial Power, Stock-Based Compensation, And Firm Performance: Theory And Evidence," Monash Economics Working Papers 21/08, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    15. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2007. "A Calibratable Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 13372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Brian J. Hall & Thomas A. Knox, 2002. "Managing Option Fragility," NBER Working Papers 9059, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Li, Feng & Srinivasan, Suraj, 2011. "Corporate governance when founders are directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 454-469.
    18. Stanimir Morfov & Manuel Santos, 2017. "A Model of Managerial Talent: Addressing Some Puzzles in CEO Compensation," Working Papers 2017-03, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    19. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    20. Novak, Jiri & Bilinski, Pawel, 2018. "Social stigma and executive compensation," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 169-184.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Ceo; Pay; Incentives; Equity plans;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:cpr:ceprdp:11385. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.