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Does CEO compensation reflect managerial ability or managerial power? Evidence from the compensation of powerful CEOs

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  • Song, Wei-Ling
  • Wan, Kam-Ming

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between managerial power and compensation for Chief Executive Officers of S&P 500 companies from 1993 through 2012. We find that more-powerful CEOs earn more than less-powerful CEOs. We refer to this additional compensation as a “power premium” and investigate this power premium based on two competing views. The managerial ability view argues that the power premium compensates CEOs for their better managerial talent while the managerial power view argues that the power premium reflects the CEO's ability to extract excessive compensation. Overall, our results are more consistent with the managerial ability view. Empirically, we find that the power premium and the fraction of equity-based compensation are invariant to whether the CEO is newly hired or not. We also find that the likelihood of having an explicit employment contract is similar between new and incumbent CEOs.

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  • Song, Wei-Ling & Wan, Kam-Ming, 2019. "Does CEO compensation reflect managerial ability or managerial power? Evidence from the compensation of powerful CEOs," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:56:y:2019:i:c:p:1-14
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2018.11.009
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    13. Gan, Xiaojun & Hu, Pei, 2023. "Managerial ability and stock price synchronicity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    14. Fernando, Guy D. & Jain, Shalini Sarin & Tripathy, Arindam, 2020. "This cloud has a silver lining: Gender diversity, managerial ability, and firm performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 484-496.
    15. María Consuelo Pucheta-Martínez & Isabel Gallego-Álvarez, 2021. "The Role of CEO Power on CSR Reporting: The Moderating Effect of Linking CEO Compensation to Shareholder Return," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-19, March.
    16. Claude Francoeur & Faten Lakhal & Safa Gaaya & Itidel Ben Saad, 2021. "How do powerful CEOs influence corporate environmental performance?," Post-Print hal-02976839, HAL.
    17. Shi, Lina & Gong, Stephen & Wang, Xingang, 2021. "Social network, corporate governance, and rent extraction in CEO compensation: Evidence from spatial econometric models," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    CEO power; CEO compensation; Founder-CEO; Employment contracts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods

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