IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v107y2013i2p477-493.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

CEO compensation contagion: Evidence from an exogenous shock

Author

Listed:
  • Bereskin, Frederick L.
  • Cicero, David C.

Abstract

We examine how Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation increased at a subset of firms in response to a governance shock that affected compensation levels at other firms in the economy. We first show that Delaware-incorporated firms with staggered boards and no outside blockholders increased CEO compensation following the mid-1990s Delaware legal cases that strengthened their ability to resist hostile takeovers. Consistent with the Gabaix and Landier (2008) contagion hypothesis, non-Delaware firms subsequently increased CEO compensation when the rulings affected a substantial number of firms in their industries. We further show how these legal developments contributed significantly to the rapid increase in CEO compensation in the late 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Bereskin, Frederick L. & Cicero, David C., 2013. "CEO compensation contagion: Evidence from an exogenous shock," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 477-493.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:107:y:2013:i:2:p:477-493
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2012.09.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304405X12001900
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jfineco.2012.09.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bo Becker & Per Strömberg, 2012. "Fiduciary Duties and Equity-debtholder Conflicts," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(6), pages 1931-1969.
    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. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Fried, Jesse & Walker, David I, 2002. "Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3558, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cohen, Alma, 2005. "The costs of entrenched boards," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(2), pages 409-433, November.
    5. Rauh, Joshua D., 2006. "Own company stock in defined contribution pension plans: A takeover defense?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 379-410, August.
    6. DeAngelo, Harry & Rice, Edward M., 1983. "Antitakeover charter amendments and stockholder wealth," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-4), pages 329-359, April.
    7. Low, Angie, 2009. "Managerial risk-taking behavior and equity-based compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 470-490, June.
    8. Richard M. Cyert & Sok-Hyon Kang & Praveen Kumar, 2002. "Corporate Governance, Takeovers, and Top-Management Compensation: Theory and Evidence," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(4), pages 453-469, April.
    9. Hayong Yun, 2009. "The Choice of Corporate Liquidity and Corporate Governance," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 1447-1475, April.
    10. Daines, Robert & Klausner, Michael, 2001. "Do IPO Charters Maximize Firm Value? Antitakeover Protection in IPOs," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 83-120, April.
    11. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 1999. "Is There a Discretion in Wage Setting? A Test Using Takeover Legislation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 30(3), pages 535-554, Autumn.
    12. 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.
    13. Perry, Tod & Zenner, Marc, 2001. "Pay for performance? Government regulation and the structure of compensation contracts," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 453-488, December.
    14. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2005. "Pay Without Performance: Overview of the Issues," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 17(4), pages 8-23, September.
    15. 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.
    16. Agrawal, Anup & Knoeber, Charles R., 1998. "Managerial compensation and the threat of takeover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 219-239, February.
    17. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    18. Bizjak, John & Lemmon, Michael & Nguyen, Thanh, 2011. "Are all CEOs above average? An empirical analysis of compensation peer groups and pay design," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(3), pages 538-555, June.
    19. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation," Scholarly Articles 29407535, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    20. Borokhovich, Kenneth A & Brunarski, Kelly R & Parrino, Robert, 1997. "CEO Contracting and Antitakeover Amendments," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1495-1517, September.
    21. Guhan Subramanian, 2004. "The Disappearing Delaware Effect," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 32-59, April.
    22. Lucian Bebchuk & Jesse Fried, 2002. "Power, rent extraction, and executive compensation," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(03), pages 23-28, October.
    23. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    24. 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.
    25. Catherine Wolfram & Nancy L. Rose, 2000. "Has the "Million-Dollar Cap" Affected CEO Pay?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 197-202, May.
    26. Giroud, Xavier & Mueller, Holger M., 2010. "Does corporate governance matter in competitive industries?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3), pages 312-331, March.
    27. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January.
    28. Brickley, James A & James, Christopher M, 1987. "The Takeover Market, Corporate Board Composition, and Ownership Structure: The Case of Banking," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 161-180, April.
    29. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Fried, Jesse M., 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt81q3136r, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    30. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2009. "A Multiplicative Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4881-4917, December.
    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. Qi Liu & Bo Sun, 2016. "Relative Wealth Concerns, Executive Compensation, and Systemic Risk-Taking," International Finance Discussion Papers 1164, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Kai Zhao & Huahua Huang & Wanshu Wu, 2022. "State-Level Urban Agglomeration and Enterprise Innovation: A Quasi-Natural Experiment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-17, July.
    3. Meir Russ & Bino Catas?s, 2014. "Editorial. Intellectual Capital and Management Control: Human Capital Valuation and other challenges," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2014(2), pages 5-21.
    4. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    5. Wruck, Karen H. & Wu, YiLin, 2021. "The relation between CEO equity incentives and the quality of accounting disclosures: New evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    6. Heron, Randall A. & Lie, Erik, 2015. "The effect of poison pill adoptions and court rulings on firm entrenchment," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 286-296.
    7. Lei Gao & Andrey Zagorchev, 2020. "Dual-Class Firms and Innovation after NAFTA," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(01), pages 1-33, March.
    8. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier & Julien Sauvagnat, 2014. "CEO Pay and Firm Size: An Update After the Crisis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 40-59, February.
    9. Amore, Mario Daniele & Schwenen, Sebastian, 2020. "The Value of Luck in the Labor Market for CEOs," CEPR Discussion Papers 14839, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Jeffrey (Jun) Chen & Yun Guan & Ivy Tang, 2020. "Optimal Contracting of Pension Incentive: Evidence of Currency Risk Management in Multinational Companies," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-29, February.
    11. Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & Wu, Qiang & Park, Jong Chool, 2014. "Gender differences in financial reporting decision-making: Evidence from accounting conservatism," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 1/2014, Bank of Finland.
    12. Bill Francis & Iftekhar Hasan & Jong Chool Park & Qiang Wu, 2015. "Gender Differences in Financial Reporting Decision Making: Evidence from Accounting Conservatism," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 1285-1318, September.
    13. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2014_001 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. 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.
    2. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Michael S. Weisbach, 2012. "The State of Corporate Governance Research," Springer Books, in: Sabri Boubaker & Bang Dang Nguyen & Duc Khuong Nguyen (ed.), Corporate Governance, edition 127, pages 325-346, Springer.
    3. Yan Liu & Carol Padgett & Simone Varotto, 2017. "Corporate Governance, Bank Mergers and Executive Compensation," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 12-29, January.
    4. Albuquerque, Ana M. & De Franco, Gus & Verdi, Rodrigo S., 2013. "Peer choice in CEO compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 160-181.
    5. Loureiro, Gilberto & Makhija, Anil K. & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Why Do Some CEOs Work for a One-Dollary Salary?," Working Paper Series 2011-7, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    6. Palmberg, Johanna, 2012. "Family Control and Executive Compensation," Ratio Working Papers 186, The Ratio Institute.
    7. 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.
    8. Choe, Chongwoo & Tian, Gloria Y. & Yin, Xiangkang, 2014. "CEO power and the structure of CEO pay," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 237-248.
    9. 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.
    10. Balafas, Nikolaos & Florackis, Chris, 2014. "CEO compensation and future shareholder returns: Evidence from the London Stock Exchange," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 97-115.
    11. Yaniv Grinstein & Stefano Rossi, 2016. "Good Monitoring, Bad Monitoring," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 20(5), pages 1719-1768.
    12. Jongmoo Jay Choi & Omer F. Genc & Ming Ju, 2020. "Is an M&A self‐dealing? Evidence on international and domestic acquisitions and CEO compensation," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(9-10), pages 1290-1315, October.
    13. 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.
    14. Dev R. Mishra, 2021. "Charitable inclination and the chief executive officer's pay package," The Financial Review, Eastern Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 85-108, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Balsmeier Benjamin & Buchwald Achim & Peters Heiko, 2010. "Auswirkungen von Mehrfachmandaten deutscher Vorstands- und Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender auf den Unternehmenserfolg / The Impact of Multiple Board Memberships of CEOs and Chairmen of Supervisory Boards on," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 230(5), pages 547-570, October.
    17. Martijn Cremers & Yaniv Grinstein, 2009. "The Market for CEO Talent: Implications for CEO Compensation," Yale School of Management Working Papers amz2385, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Sep 2009.
    18. Younge, Kenneth A. & Tong, Tony W., 2018. "Competitive pressure on the rate and scope of innovation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 162-181.
    19. Lionel Almeida, 2015. "Who are the controlling shareholders? Degree and seniority of control, and CEO pay monitoring," EconomiX Working Papers 2015-27, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    20. Christian Engelen, 2015. "The effects of managerial discretion on moral hazard related behaviour: German evidence on agency costs," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 19(4), pages 927-960, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Executive compensation; Classified board; Poison pill; Delaware; Corporate governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance

    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:eee:jfinec:v:107:y:2013:i:2:p:477-493. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    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.