IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v94y2021ics2214804321000653.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are Very High Salaries Necessary for Achieving Economic Efficiency?

Author

Listed:
  • Malul, Miki
  • Rosenboim, Mosi
  • Shapira, Daniel

Abstract

An average worker in some US companies needs to work more than a year to earn his/her CEO's daily wage. We posit that the level of effort any individual can invest is bounded. Therefore, we cast doubt on the well-accepted economic notion that extremely high salaries are necessary because they ensure economic efficiency. Considering the notion of bounded effort may enrich the public discussion about the need for extreme wage levels that to date has overlooked the limited power of economic incentives.

Suggested Citation

  • Malul, Miki & Rosenboim, Mosi & Shapira, Daniel, 2021. "Are Very High Salaries Necessary for Achieving Economic Efficiency?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s2214804321000653
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2021.101725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804321000653
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2021.101725?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. Emmanuel Saez & Gabriel Zucman, 2020. "The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America: Evidence from Distributional Macroeconomic Accounts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(4), pages 3-26, Fall.
    2. Rosen, S., 1990. "Contracts and Market for Executives," University of Chicago - Economics Research Center 90-12, Chicago - Economics Research Center.
    3. Laurence Ales & Christopher Sleet, 2016. "Taxing Top CEO Incomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3331-3366, November.
    4. Steven J. Luck & Edward K. Vogel, 1997. "The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions," Nature, Nature, vol. 390(6657), pages 279-281, November.
    5. 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.
    6. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    7. Christopher Sleet & Laurence Ales, 2016. "Taxing Top Incomes," 2016 Meeting Papers 1478, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Dittmann, Ingolf & Maug, Ernst & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Restricting CEO pay," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 1200-1220, September.
    9. Sherwin Rosen, 1982. "Authority, Control, and the Distribution of Earnings," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 311-323, Autumn.
    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. Jiaxin He & Jingyi Li & Xing Chen, 2024. "Enhancing the corporate social & environmental responsibility of Chinese energy enterprises: A view from the role of management compensation incentive," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-13, December.
    2. Dmytro Osiichuk, 2022. "The Driver of Workplace Alienation or the Cost of Effective Stewardship? The Consequences of Wage Gap for Corporate Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-26, June.

    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. 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.
    2. Florian Scheuer & Joel Slemrod, 2020. "Taxation and the Superrich," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 189-211, August.
    3. 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.
    4. Cronqvist, Henrik & Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger, 2013. "CEO contract design: How do strong principals do it?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 659-674.
    5. Derek Neal & Sherwin Rosen, 1998. "Theories of the Distribution of Labor Earnings," NBER Working Papers 6378, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Fernando Núñez & Ángel Arcos-Vargas & Carlos Usabiaga & Pablo Álvarez-de-Toledo, 2022. "On directors’ compensation: a multilevel analysis of Spanish listed companies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 2173-2207, October.
    7. Frédéric TEULON, 2014. "CEO compensation and topmanagement incentives. Internal or social problems ?," Working Papers 2014-187, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    8. Bang Dang Nguyen & Kasper Meisner Nielsen, 2014. "What Death Can Tell: Are Executives Paid for Their Contributions to Firm Value?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(12), pages 2994-3010, December.
    9. repec:eee:jebusi:v:67:y:2013:i:c:p:67-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Ana P. Fernandes & Priscila Ferreira & L. Alan Winters, 2014. "The Effect of Competition on Managers' Compensation: Evidence From a Quasi-natural Experiment," NIMA Working Papers 57, Núcleo de Investigação em Microeconomia Aplicada (NIMA), Universidade do Minho.
    12. Carola Frydman, 2008. "Learning from the Past: Trends in Executive Compensation over the Twentieth Century," CESifo Working Paper Series 2460, CESifo.
    13. Sudip Datta & Mai Iskandar-Datta, 2014. "Upper-echelon executive human capital and compensation: Generalist vs specialist skills," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(12), pages 1853-1866, December.
    14. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    15. Carlos Jiménez-Angueira & Nathan Stuart, 2015. "Relative performance evaluation, pay-for-luck, and double-dipping in CEO compensation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 701-732, May.
    16. Ufuk Akcigit & Douglas Hanley & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2022. "Optimal Taxation and R&D Policies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 645-684, March.
    17. Kato, Takao & Kim, Woochan & Lee, Ju Ho, 2007. "Executive compensation, firm performance, and Chaebols in Korea: Evidence from new panel data," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 36-55, January.
    18. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    19. Luis Medrano-Adán & Vicente Salas-Fumás & J. Sanchez-Asin, 2015. "Heterogeneous entrepreneurs from occupational choices in economies with minimum wages," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 597-619, March.
    20. Waldenberger Franz, 2013. "“Company heroes” versus “superstars”: executive pay in Japan in comparative perspective," Contemporary Japan, De Gruyter, vol. 25(2), pages 189-213, August.
    21. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2016. "Bonus Culture: Competitive Pay, Screening, and Multitasking," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(2), pages 305-370.

    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:soceco:v:94:y:2021:i:c:s2214804321000653. 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/620175 .

    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.