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CEO pay and the market for CEOs

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Abstract

Competitive sorting models of the CEO labor market (e.g., Edmans, Gabaix and Landier (2009)) predict that differences in CEO productive abilities, or \"talent\", should be an important determinant of CEO pay. However, measuring CEO talent empirically represents a major challenge. In this paper, we document reliable evidence of pay for CEO credentials and argue that the evidence is consistent with models of the CEO labor market. Our main finding is that boards' compensation decisions reward several reputational, career, and educational credentials of CEOs, with newly-appointed CEOs earning a 5 percent ($280,000) total pay premium for each decile improvement in the distribution of these credentials. Consistent with boards using credentials as publicly-observable signals of CEO abilities, we show that pay for credentials displays key cross-sectional features predicted by theory, such as convexity in credentials and complementarity with firm size. Our main finding is robust to a battery of identification tests that address selectivity and endogeneity concerns, including instrumental variables estimates and controlling for firm and CEO fixed effects. We also show that credentials capture variation in CEO human capital that is different from lifetime work experience, and are positively related to long-term firm performance and board monitoring, which helps to distinguish our results from alternative stories based on CEO general human capital, hype, and entrenchment. Overall, our findings suggest that sorting considerations in the CEO labor market are an important determinant of CEO pay. Our results also suggest that the rise in CEO pay over the last decades may owe at least in part to a rise in the CEO talent premium.

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  • Antonio Falato & Dan Li & Todd T. Milbourn, 2012. "CEO pay and the market for CEOs," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2012-39, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2012-39
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    2. Custódio, Cláudia & Metzger, Daniel, 2014. "Financial expert CEOs: CEO׳s work experience and firm׳s financial policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 125-154.
    3. Irina O. Volkova, 2013. "Application of data envelopment analysis in management research (case of Russian domestic energy sector)," HSE Working papers WP BRP 14/MAN/2013, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    4. Bick, Patty & Flugum, Ryan, 2022. "Money isn't everything: Compensation of locally educated executives," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    5. Huang, Lu & Liu, Yizao, 2014. "The Dynamics of Brand Value in the Carbonated Soft Drinks Industry," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 172389, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    6. Pierre Chaigneau & Nicolas Sahuguet, 2014. "Explaining the Association between Monitoring and Controversial CEO Pay Practices: an Optimal Contracting Perspective," Cahiers de recherche 1406, CIRPEE.
    7. Veerisa Chotiyaputta, 2016. "Firm Performance by Thai CEOs in the SET100: Foreign or Locally Educated?," GATR Journals jmmr112, Global Academy of Training and Research (GATR) Enterprise.
    8. Zhe Li & Oksana Pryshchepa & Bo Wang, 2023. "Financial experts on the top management team: Do they reduce investment inefficiency?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1-2), pages 198-235, January.
    9. Meital Graham Rozen, 2024. "Effectiveness of Executive Compensation Cap Law: Evidence from Israel," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2024.07, Bank of Israel.
    10. Stacey Beaumont & Raluca Ratiu & David Reeb & Glenn Boyle & Philip Brown & Alexander Szimayer & Raymond Silva Rosa & David Hillier & Patrick McColgan & Athanasios Tsekeris & Bryan Howieson & Zoltan Ma, 2016. "Comments on Shan and Walter: ‘Towards a Set of Design Principles for Executive Compensation Contracts’," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 52(4), pages 685-771, December.
    11. deHaan, Ed & Shevlin, Terry & Thornock, Jacob, 2015. "Market (in)attention and the strategic scheduling and timing of earnings announcements," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 36-55.

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