IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cra/wpaper/2008-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Determinants of Directors? Pay in Switzerland: ?Optimal-Contract? versus ?Fat Cat? Explanation

Author

Listed:
  • Katja Rost
  • Margit Osterloh

Abstract

Director compensation has become a fashionable topic: Cross-nationally, the earnings of executives and non-executive directors have risen significantly in recent years. Academic literature offers two hypotheses for this trend, a ?fat cat? and an ?optimal-contract? explanation. Proponents of the ?fat cat? explanation state that directors are paid too much due to their unjustified power. Proponents of the ?optimalcontract? hypothesis state that competition in the managerial labour market establishes an optimal compensation contract. This study contrasts both hypotheses and presents evidence that the level of directors? pay in Swiss corporations is to be explained by ?optimal contracts? and by managerial power. We give evidence to which degree the two explanations are valid.

Suggested Citation

  • Katja Rost & Margit Osterloh, 2008. "Determinants of Directors? Pay in Switzerland: ?Optimal-Contract? versus ?Fat Cat? Explanation," CREMA Working Paper Series 2008-26, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    • Handle: RePEc:cra:wpaper:2008-26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.crema-research.ch/papers/2008-26.pdf
    File Function: Full Text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.crema-research.ch/abstracts/2008-26.htm
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard A. Lambert & David F. Larcker & Keith Weigelt, 1991. "How sensitive is executive compensation to organizational size?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(5), pages 395-402, July.
    2. Lewellen, Wilbur & Loderer, Claudio & Martin, Kenneth, 1987. "Executive compensation and executive incentive problems : An empirical analysis," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 287-310, December.
    3. Mehran, Hamid, 1995. "Executive compensation structure, ownership, and firm performance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 163-184, June.
    4. Paul Joskow & Nancy Rose & Andrea Shepard, 1993. "Regulatory Constraints on CEO Compensation," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1 Microec), pages 1-72.
    5. Khan, Raihan & Dharwadkar, Ravi & Brandes, Pamela, 2005. "Institutional ownership and CEO compensation: a longitudinal examination," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(8), pages 1078-1088, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items 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. Ravi Dharwadkar & Maria Goranova & Pamela Brandes & Raihan Khan, 2008. "Institutional Ownership and Monitoring Effectiveness: It's Not Just How Much but What Else You Own," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(3), pages 419-440, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Vo, Thi Thanh Nha & Canil, Jean Milva, 2019. "CEO pay disparity: Efficient contracting or managerial power?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 168-190.
    4. Wilbur G. Lewellen, -, 1997. "Hatékonyság és eredményesség [Efficiency and effectiveness]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 3-12.
    5. Taye Mengistae & Lixin Colin Xu, 2004. "Agency Theory and Executive Compensation: The Case of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 615-638, July.
    6. Hadani, Michael & Goranova, Maria & Khan, Raihan, 2011. "Institutional investors, shareholder activism, and earnings management," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 1352-1360.
    7. Renneboog, L.D.R. & Trojanowski, G., 2002. "The Managerial Labor Market and the Governance Role of Shareholder Control Structures in the UK," Discussion Paper 2002-68, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    8. Chen, Yenn-Ru & Ma, Yulong, 2011. "Revisiting the risk-taking effect of executive stock options on firm performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(6), pages 640-648, June.
    9. Wolfgang Drobetz & Pascal Pensa & Markus M. Schmid, 2007. "Estimating the Cost of Executive Stock Options: evidence from Switzerland," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 798-815, September.
    10. Pamela Brandes & Ravi Dharwadkar & Jonathan F. Ross & Linna Shi, 2022. "Time is of the Essence!: Retired Independent Directors’ Contributions to Board Effectiveness," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(3), pages 767-793, September.
    11. Tzioumis, Konstantinos, 2008. "Why do firms adopt CEO stock options? Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 100-111, October.
    12. Chalevas, Constantinos G., 2011. "The Effect of the Mandatory Adoption of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Executive Compensation," The International Journal of Accounting, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 138-174, June.
    13. Cheng, Minying & Lin, Bingxuan & Wei, Minghai, 2015. "Executive compensation in family firms: The effect of multiple family members," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 238-257.
    14. Goh, Lisa & Gupta, Aditi, 2016. "Remuneration of non-executive directors: Evidence from the UK," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 379-399.
    15. Yacine Belghitar & Ephraim A. Clark, 2012. "The Effect of CEO Risk Appetite on Firm Volatility: An Empirical Analysis of Financial Firms☆," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(2), pages 195-211, July.
    16. Uchida, Konari, 2006. "Determinants of stock option use by Japanese companies," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 251-269.
    17. Chen, Carl R. & Steiner, Thomas L. & Whyte, Ann Marie, 2006. "Does stock option-based executive compensation induce risk-taking? An analysis of the banking industry," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 915-945, March.
    18. David Blackwell & Donna Dudney & Kathleen Farrell, 2007. "Changes in CEO compensation structure and the impact on firm performance following CEO turnover," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 315-338, October.
    19. Benoît Pigé, 1994. "La politique de rémunération en tant qu'incitation à la performance des dirigeants," Post-Print hal-02175846, HAL.
    20. Keith D. Harvey & Ronald E. Shrieves, 2001. "Executive Compensation Structure And Corporate Governance Choices," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 24(4), pages 495-512, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    director compensation; corporate governance; ?optimal-contracts?; ?fat cat? explanation;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cra:wpaper:2008-26. 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: Anna-Lea Werlen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cremach.html .

    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.