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Do CEOs Set Their Own Pay? The Ones Without Principals Do

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  • Marianne Bertrand

    (Princeton University, CEPR and NBER)

  • Sendhil Mullainathan

    (MIT and NBER)

Abstract

We empirically examine two competing views of CEO pay. In the contracting view, pay is used to solve an agency problem: the compensation committee optimally chooses pay contracts which give the CEO incentives to maximize shareholder wealth. In the skimming view, pay is the result of an agency problem: CEOs have managed to capture the pay process so that they set their own pay, constrained somewhat by the availability of cash or by a fear of drawing shareholders' attention. To distinguish these views, we first examine how CEO pay responds to luck, observable shocks to performance beyond the CEO's control. Using several measures of luck, such as changes in oil price for the oil industry, we find substantial pay for luck. Pay responds about as much to a "lucky" dollar as to a general dollar. Most importantly, we find that better governed firms pay their CEOs less for luck. Our second test examines how much CEOs are charged for the options they are granted. Since options never appear on balance sheets, they might offer an appealing way to skim. Here again we find a crucial role for governance: CEOs in better governed firms are charged more for the options they are given. These results suggest that both views of CEO pay matter. In poorly governed firms, the skimming view fits better (pay for luck and little charge for options) while in well governed firms, the contracting view fits better (filtering out of luck and charging for options).

Suggested Citation

  • Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2000. "Do CEOs Set Their Own Pay? The Ones Without Principals Do," Working Papers 810, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:indrel:431
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    2. Dittmann, Ingolf & Maug, Ernst & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Restricting CEO pay," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1200-1220, September.
    3. Paul Oyer, 2000. "Why Do Firms Use Incentives that Have No Incentive Effects?," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1440, Econometric Society.
    4. Wolfers, Justin, 2002. "Are Voters Rational? Evidence from Gubernatorial Elections," Research Papers 1730, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    5. Jenter, Dirk, 2004. "Executive Compensation, Incentives, and Risk," Working papers 4466-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    6. Art Durnev & Sergei Guriev, 2007. "The Resource Curse: A Corporate Transparency Channel," Working Papers w0108, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR).
    7. Gloria Cuevas-Rodriguez & Jaime Guerrero-Villegas & Ramón Valle-Cabrera, 2014. "Privatization effects on corporate governance, strategy and compensation systems," Working Papers 14.03, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Business Organization and Marketing (former Department of Business Administration).
    8. Sautner, Zacharias & Weber, Martin, 2005. "Corporate governance and the design of stock option programs," Papers 05-32, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    9. Vicente Cuñat & María Guadalupe, 2004. "Executive Compensation and Product Market Competition," CEP Discussion Papers dp0617, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Pischke, Jorn-Steffen & Dinardo, John & Hallock, Kevin F, 2000. "Unions And The Labour Market For Managers," CEPR Discussion Papers 2418, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Chander Shekhar & Geof Stapledon, 2007. "Governance Structures of Initial Public Offerings in Australia," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(6), pages 1177-1189, November.
    12. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2001. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998 (series updated to 2000 available)," NBER Working Papers 8467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Corneo, Giacomo, 2005. "Steuern die Steuern Unternehmensentscheidungen?," Discussion Papers 2005/3, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    14. Goergen, Marc & Renneboog, Luc, 2011. "Managerial compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1068-1077, September.
    15. Julio Segura, 2004. "Competencia, disciplina de mercado y regulación en presencia de conflictos de interés en las empresas," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 169(2), pages 135-170, June.
    16. Pierre André Chiappori & Bernard Salanié, 2002. "Testing Contract Theory: A Survey of Some Recent Work," CESifo Working Paper Series 738, CESifo.
    17. Uygur, Ozge, 2019. "Income inequality in S&P 500 companies," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 52-64.
    18. Uwe Jirjahn, 2016. "Works Councils and Employer Attitudes toward the Incentive Effects of HRM Practices," Research Papers in Economics 2016-07, University of Trier, Department of Economics.
    19. Clifford G. Holderness, 2003. "A survey of blockholders and corporate control," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 9(Apr), pages 51-64.
    20. Hall, Brian J. & Murphy, Kevin J., 2002. "Stock options for undiversified executives," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 3-42, February.
    21. Basov Suren, 2003. "Incentives for Boundedly Rational Agents," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-16, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    maximize shareholder wealth; CEO pay; luck; skimming;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General

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