IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2010.89.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Executive Compensation: Facts

Author

Listed:
  • Gian Luca Clementi

    (New York University and RCEA)

  • Thomas Cooley

    (New York University and NBER)

Abstract

In this paper we describe the important features of executive compensation in the US from 1993 to 2006. Some confirm what has been found for earlier periods and some are novel. Notable facts are that: the compensation distribution is highly skewed; each year, a sizeable fraction of chief executives lose money; the use of security grants has increased over time; the income accruing to CEOs from the sale of stock increased; regardless of the measure we adopt, compensation responds strongly to innovations in shareholder wealth; measured as dollar changes in compensation, incentives have strengthened over time, measured as percentage changes in wealth, they have not changed in any appreciable way.

Suggested Citation

  • Gian Luca Clementi & Thomas Cooley, 2010. "Executive Compensation: Facts," Working Papers 2010.89, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    • Handle: RePEc:fem:femwpa:2010.89
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://feem-media.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/NDL2010-089.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Clementi, Gian Luca & Cooley, Thomas F. & Wang, Cheng, 2006. "Stock grants as a commitment device," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2191-2216, November.
    2. 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.
    3. Brian J. Hall & Kevin J. Murphy, 2003. "The Trouble with Stock Options," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 49-70, Summer.
    4. Wang, Cheng, 1997. "Incentives, CEO Compensation, and Shareholder Wealth in a Dynamic Agency Model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 72-105, September.
    5. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    6. 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.
    7. Brian J. Hall & Kevin J. Murphy, 2003. "The Trouble with Stock Options," NBER Working Papers 9784, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Scott Schaefer, 1998. "The Dependence Of Pay--Performance Sensitivity On The Size Of The Firm," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(3), pages 436-443, August.
    9. Lucian Bebchuk, 2005. "The Growth of Executive Pay," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 21(2), pages 283-303, Summer.
    10. Gerald Garvey & Todd Milbourn, 2003. "Incentive Compensation When Executives Can Hedge the Market: Evidence of Relative Performance Evaluation in the Cross Section," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1557-1582, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Peter F. Kostiuk, 1990. "Firm Size and Executive Compensation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 25(1), pages 90-105.
    13. Antle, R & Smith, A, 1985. "Measuring Executive-Compensation - Methods And An Application," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 296-325.
    14. Eli Ofek & David Yermack, 2000. "Taking Stock: Equity‐Based Compensation and the Evolution of Managerial Ownership," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(3), pages 1367-1384, June.
    15. 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.
    16. Cichello, Michael S., 2005. "The impact of firm size on pay-performance sensitivities," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 609-627, September.
    17. Stephen E. Spear & Sanjay Srivastava, 1987. "On Repeated Moral Hazard with Discounting," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 54(4), pages 599-617.
    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. C, Loran & Eckbo, Espen & Lu, Ching-Chih, 2014. "Does Executive Compensation Reflect Default Risk?," UiS Working Papers in Economics and Finance 2014/11, University of Stavanger.
    2. Ronald Anderson & Cecilia Bustamante & Stéphane Guibaud & Mihail Zervos, 2018. "Agency, Firm Growth, and Managerial Turnover," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03391936, HAL.
    3. Lixin Tang, 2020. "Entrepreneur Income Inequality, Aggregate Saving and the Gains from Trade," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 273-295, October.
    4. Dietl Helmut M & Duschl Tobias & Lang Markus, 2011. "Executive Pay Regulation: What Regulators, Shareholders, and Managers Can Learn from Major Sports Leagues," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-32, August.
    5. Riachi, Ilham & Schwienbacher, Armin, 2013. "Securitization of corporate assets and executive compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 235-251.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2iclr3ojhv9ko9ord4mpg9odaj is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Rui Castro & Gian Luca Clementi & Yoonsoo Lee, 2015. "Cross Sectoral Variation in the Volatility of Plant Level Idiosyncratic Shocks," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(1), pages 1-29, March.
    8. Hengjie Ai & Dana Kiku & Rui Li & Jincheng Tong, 2021. "A Unified Model of Firm Dynamics with Limited Commitment and Assortative Matching," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 317-356, February.
    9. Holden, Craig W. & Kim, Daniel S., 2017. "Performance share plans: Valuation and empirical tests," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 99-125.
    10. Vincenzo Quadrini & Ramon Marimon & Thomas Cooley, 2012. "Risky Investments with Limited Commitment," 2012 Meeting Papers 603, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Victor Manuel Bennett, 2020. "Changes in persistence of performance over time," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(10), pages 1745-1769, October.
    12. Anderson, Ronald W. & Bustamante, Maria Cecilia & Guibaud, Stéphane & Zervos, Mihail, 2018. "Agency, firm growth, and managerial turnover," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68784, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Gulen, Huseyin & O'Brien, William J., 2017. "Option repricing, corporate governance, and the effect of shareholder empowerment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 389-415.
    14. Rui Castro & Gian Luca Clementi & Yoonsoo Lee, 2008. "Cross-sectoral variation in firm-level idiosyncratic risk," Working Papers (Old Series) 0812, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    15. Ronald Anderson & Cecilia Bustamante & Stéphane Guibaud & Mihail Zervos, 2018. "Agency, Firm Growth, and Managerial Turnover," Post-Print hal-03391936, HAL.
    16. Arantxa Jarque, 2014. "The Complexity of CEO Compensation," Working Paper 14-16, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    17. 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.
    18. Andreas Kuhn, 2010. "The Public Perception and Normative Valuation of Executive Compensation: An International Comparison," NRN working papers 2010-13, The Austrian Center for Labor Economics and the Analysis of the Welfare State, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2iclr3ojhv9ko9ord4mpg9odaj is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Andreas Kuhn, 2017. "International Evidence on the Perception and Normative Valuation of Executive Compensation," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 112-136, March.
    21. Shuhei Aoki & Makoto Nirei, 2014. "Zipf’s Law, Pareto’s Law, and the Evolution of Top Incomes in the U.S," UTokyo Price Project Working Paper Series 023, University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Economics.
    22. Ronald Anderson & Cecilia Bustamante & Stéphane Guibaud & Mihail Zervos, 2018. "Agency, Firm Growth, and Managerial Turnover," SciencePo Working papers hal-03391936, HAL.
    23. Acrey, James Cash & McCumber, William R. & Nguyen, Thu Hien T., 2011. "CEO incentives and bank risk," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(5), pages 456-471, September.
    24. Arantxa Jarque & Muth John, 2013. "Evaluating Executive Compensation Packages," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 4Q, pages 251-285.

    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. Gian Luca Clementi & Thomas Cooley, 2023. "CEO Compensation: Facts," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 50, pages 6-27, October.
    2. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Tom Cooley & Sonia Di Giannatale & Gian Luca Clementi, 2008. "Total Executive Compensation," 2008 Meeting Papers 906, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. 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.
    6. Page, T. Beau, 2018. "CEO attributes, compensation, and firm value: Evidence from a structural estimation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(2), pages 378-401.
    7. George-Levi Gayle & Robert A. Miller, 2009. "Has Moral Hazard Become a More Important Factor in Managerial Compensation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1740-1769, December.
    8. Arantxa Jarque, 2008. "CEO compensation : trends, market changes, and regulation," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Sum), pages 265-300.
    9. 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.
    10. Otten, J.A. & Heugens, P.P.M.A.R., 2007. "Extending the Managerial Power Theory of Executive Pay: A Cross National Test," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2007-090-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Ying Sophie Huang & Carl R. Chen, 2013. "Are college chief executives paid like corporate CEOs or bureaucrats?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(21), pages 3035-3043, July.
    14. Dietl Helmut M & Duschl Tobias & Lang Markus, 2011. "Executive Pay Regulation: What Regulators, Shareholders, and Managers Can Learn from Major Sports Leagues," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-32, August.
    15. Carola Frydman & Raven E. Saks, 2010. "Executive Compensation: A New View from a Long-Term Perspective, 1936--2005," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 2099-2138.
    16. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    17. Doyoung Kim, 2010. "The use of stock-based pay for sorting: an empirical analysis of compensation for new CEOs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(23), pages 2999-3010.
    18. Moritz Heimes & Steffen Seemann, 2012. "Which Pay for what Performance? Evidence from Executive Compensation in Germany and the United States," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2012-29, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    19. Arantxa Jarque & Muth John, 2013. "Evaluating Executive Compensation Packages," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue 4Q, pages 251-285.
    20. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CEO; Pay–Performance Sensitivity; Stock; Options;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

    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:fem:femwpa:2010.89. 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: Alberto Prina Cerai (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feemmit.html .

    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.