IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v23y2013icp39-53.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Asymmetric benchmarking of pay in firms

Author

Listed:
  • Francis, Bill
  • Hasan, Iftekhar
  • John, Kose
  • Sharma, Zenu

Abstract

This paper examines whether asymmetric benchmarking of pay exists for vice presidents (VPs). Using ExecuComp data for 1992–2007, we find that companies reward VPs for good luck but do not penalize them for bad luck. However, asymmetric benchmarking of VP pay is mitigated by governance, CEO power, gender, and industry factors. The presence of asymmetric benchmarking of pay could suggest that managers are involved in skimming, or it could mean that firms insulate managers from poor firm performance to prevent them from accessing outside opportunities. We find that unlike CEOs, asymmetric benchmarking of pay for VPs is not consistent with the skimming hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Francis, Bill & Hasan, Iftekhar & John, Kose & Sharma, Zenu, 2013. "Asymmetric benchmarking of pay in firms," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 39-53.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:23:y:2013:i:c:p:39-53
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2013.07.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119913000618
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2013.07.004?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. Robert Gibbons & Kevin J. Murphy, 1990. "Relative Performance Evaluation for Chief Executive Officers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 30, April.
    2. 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.
    3. Paul Oyer, 2004. "Why Do Firms Use Incentives That Have No Incentive Effects?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1619-1650, August.
    4. Yermack, David, 1997. "Good Timing: CEO Stock Option Awards and Company News Announcements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 449-476, June.
    5. James B. Wade & Charles A. O'Reilly & Timothy G. Pollock, 2006. "Overpaid CEOs and Underpaid Managers: Fairness and Executive Compensation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(5), pages 527-544, October.
    6. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1989. "Management entrenchment : The case of manager-specific investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 123-139, November.
    7. Garvey, Gerald T. & Milbourn, Todd T., 2006. "Asymmetric benchmarking in compensation: Executives are rewarded for good luck but not penalized for bad," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 197-225, October.
    8. 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.
    9. Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "Moral Hazard in Teams," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 324-340, Autumn.
    10. Grinstein, Yaniv & Hribar, Paul, 2004. "CEO compensation and incentives: Evidence from M&A bonuses," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 119-143, July.
    11. Anil Shivdasani & David Yermack, 1999. "CEO Involvement in the Selection of New Board Members: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(5), pages 1829-1853, October.
    12. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    13. Lucian Bebchuk & Yaniv Grinstein, 2005. "Firm Expansion and CEO Pay," NBER Working Papers 11886, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Shivaram Rajgopal & Terry Shevlin & Valentina Zamora, 2006. "CEOs' Outside Employment Opportunities and the Lack of Relative Performance Evaluation in Compensation Contracts," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1813-1844, August.
    15. HOLMSTROM, Bengt, 1979. "Moral hazard and observability," LIDAM Reprints CORE 379, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    16. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    17. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Cremers, K.J. Martijn & Peyer, Urs C., 2011. "The CEO pay slice," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 199-221, October.
    18. Raghuram G. Rajan & Julie Wulf, 2006. "The Flattening Firm: Evidence from Panel Data on the Changing Nature of Corporate Hierarchies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 759-773, November.
    19. George-Levi Gayle & Limor Golan & Robert A. Miller, 2012. "Gender Differences in Executive Compensation and Job Mobility," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(4), pages 829-872.
    20. Filbeck, Greg, 2001. "Mother Jones: Do better places to work imply better places to invest?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 57-70.
    21. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 2003. "Performance Incentives within Firms: The Effect of Managerial Responsibility," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1613-1650, August.
    22. Kevin J. Murphy & Jan Zabojnik, 2006. "Managerial Capital And The Market For Ceos," Working Paper 1110, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    23. Bengt Holmstrom, 1979. "Moral Hazard and Observability," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 10(1), pages 74-91, Spring.
    24. Renée B. Adams & Heitor Almeida & Daniel Ferreira, 2005. "Powerful CEOs and Their Impact on Corporate Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 1403-1432.
    25. George P. Baker & Brian J. Hall, 2004. "CEO Incentives and Firm Size," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(4), pages 767-798, October.
    26. Phyllis A. Siegel & Donald C. Hambrick, 2005. "Pay Disparities Within Top Management Groups: Evidence of Harmful Effects on Performance of High-Technology Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(3), pages 259-274, June.
    27. 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.
    28. Radhakrishnan Gopalan & Todd Milbourn & Fenghua Song, 2010. "Strategic Flexibility and the Optimality of Pay for Sector Performance," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(5), pages 2060-2098.
    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. Clement Olalekan Olaniyi & Olaolu Richard Olayeni, 2020. "A new perspective into the relationship between CEO pay and firm performance: evidence from Nigeria’s listed firms," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 22(2), pages 250-277, December.
    2. Morellec, Erwan & Gryglewicz, Sebastian & Mayer, Simon, 2018. "Agency Conflicts over the Short and Long Run: Short-termism, Long-termism, and Pay-for-Luck," CEPR Discussion Papers 12720, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Nguyen, Thi Hong Hanh & Ntim, Collins G. & Malagila, John K., 2020. "Women on corporate boards and corporate financial and non-financial performance: A systematic literature review and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    4. Gryglewicz, Sebastian & Mayer, Simon & Morellec, Erwan, 2020. "Agency conflicts and short- versus long-termism in corporate policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(3), pages 718-742.
    5. Campbell, T. Colin & Thompson, Mary Elizabeth, 2015. "Why are CEOs paid for good luck? An empirical comparison of explanations for pay-for-luck asymmetry," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 247-264.

    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. 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.
    2. Na, Ke, 2020. "CEOs’ outside opportunities and relative performance evaluation: evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(3), pages 679-700.
    3. Campbell, T. Colin & Thompson, Mary Elizabeth, 2015. "Why are CEOs paid for good luck? An empirical comparison of explanations for pay-for-luck asymmetry," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 247-264.
    4. Hongfei Tang, 2014. "Are CEO stock option grants optimal? Evidence from family firms and non-family firms around the Sarbanes–Oxley Act," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 251-292, February.
    5. 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.
    6. Fich, Eliezer M. & Starks, Laura T. & Yore, Adam S., 2014. "CEO deal-making activities and compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(3), pages 471-492.
    7. Pierre Chaigneau & Nicolas Sahuguet, "undated". "The structure of CEO pay: pay-for-luck and stock-options," FMG Discussion Papers dp713, Financial Markets Group.
    8. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    9. Kelly Shue & Richard Townsend, 2016. "Growth through Rigidity: An Explanation for the Rise in CEO Pay," NBER Working Papers 21975, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.
    11. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2007. "A Calibratable Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," NBER Working Papers 13372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Keller, Wolfgang & Olney, William W., 2021. "Globalization and executive compensation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    13. Stanimir Morfov & Manuel Santos, 2017. "A Model of Managerial Talent: Addressing Some Puzzles in CEO Compensation," Working Papers 2017-03, University of Miami, Department of Economics.
    14. João Paulo Vieito & António Cerqueira & Elísio Brandão & Walayet A. Khan, 2009. "Executive Compensation: the Finance Perspective," Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, vol. 0(1), pages 3-32.
    15. Dirk Jenter & Fadi Kanaan, 2015. "CEO Turnover and Relative Performance Evaluation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(5), pages 2155-2184, October.
    16. Michel Magnan & Dominic Martin, 2019. "Executive Compensation and Employee Remuneration: The Flexible Principles of Justice in Pay," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 89-105, November.
    17. Liu, Cai & Yin, Chao, 2023. "Institutional investors’ monitoring attention, CEO compensation, and relative performance evaluation," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    18. Albuquerque, Ana, 2009. "Peer firms in relative performance evaluation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 69-89, October.
    19. Reza, Syed Walid, 2020. "Profit skimming, asymmetric benchmarking, or the effects of implicit incentives? Evidence from natural disasters," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 57.
    20. Eduard Marinov, 2016. "The 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 6, pages 97-149.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CEO compensation; VP compensation; Benchmarking; Pay for luck;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    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:corfin:v:23:y:2013:i:c:p:39-53. 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/jcorpfin .

    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.