IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijfss/v13y2025i4p181-d1761328.html

Is U.S. CEO Equity and Cash Compensation Aligned with Agency Theory to Maximize Shareholder Returns?

Author

Listed:
  • Gurupdesh Pandher

    (School of Management and Business, University Canada West, 1461 Granville Street, Vancouver, BC V6Z 0E5, Canada)

  • David Koslowsky

    (College of Business, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA)

  • Yosef Bonaparte

    (UC Business School, University of Colorado, Denver, CO 80202, USA)

Abstract

Recent international studies on CEO pay in Europe, Japan, and South Korea reveal significant differences from the U.S. in the use and effectiveness of equity-based CEO compensation, raising questions about the ability of conventional contracts based on agency theory to align with actual CEO compensation practices. Our study contributes to this debate by evaluating nine hypotheses from an extended principal–agent framework in which CEO equity and cash incentives are jointly determined in the shareholder return-maximizing contract. The extended model also incorporates the noisy market valuation relationship between firm income and its market equity value, and distinguishes between firm ‘business risk’ and ‘equity risk’. Our empirical results show that CEO cash incentives increase with firm growth prospects and equity risk and decline with firm business risk and firm scale as predicted by the model; meanwhile, CEO equity incentives are partially consistent. Overall, given the dominance of equity compensation in U.S. CEO pay, our results show that cash pay tied to firm business performance (e.g., operating cash flow) is efficient and plays an important role in aligning CEO and shareholder interests and reducing corporate governance risks associated with agency misalignment.

Suggested Citation

  • Gurupdesh Pandher & David Koslowsky & Yosef Bonaparte, 2025. "Is U.S. CEO Equity and Cash Compensation Aligned with Agency Theory to Maximize Shareholder Returns?," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-22, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:4:p:181-:d:1761328
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/4/181/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/13/4/181/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Efraim Benmelech & Eugene Kandel & Pietro Veronesi, 2010. "Stock-Based Compensation and CEO (Dis)Incentives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1769-1820.
    2. Alan D. Jagolinzer & Steven R. Matsunaga & P. Eric Yeung, 2007. "An Analysis of Insiders' Use of Prepaid Variable Forward Transactions," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 45(5), pages 1055-1079, December.
    3. Ing-Haw Cheng & Harrison Hong & José A. Scheinkman, 2015. "Yesterday's Heroes: Compensation and Risk at Financial Firms," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(2), pages 839-879, April.
    4. Goldman, Eitan & Slezak, Steve L., 2006. "An equilibrium model of incentive contracts in the presence of information manipulation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 603-626, June.
    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. Pandher, Gurupdesh, 2022. "Determinants of Return-maximizing CEO Equity & Cash compensation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 154-168.
    2. Gao, Mingze & Leung, Henry & Qiu, Buhui, 2021. "Organization capital and executive performance incentives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    3. Kang, Chang-Mo & Kim, Donghyun, 2022. "Risk management transparency and compensation," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    4. Muhammad Sadiq & Shafi Mohamad & Wing Chong Garrett Kwong, 2019. "Do CEO Incentives Mediate the Relationship between Political Influences and Financial Reporting Quality?," International Journal of Asian Social Science, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(3), pages 276-284, March.
    5. Taylan Mavruk & Evert Carlsson, 2015. "How long is a long-term-firm investment in the presence of governance mechanisms?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(1), pages 117-149, June.
    6. Li, Xingli & Pukthuanthong, Kuntara & Glenn Walker, Marcus & Walker, Thomas John, 2016. "The determinants of IPO-related shareholder litigation: The role of CEO equity incentives and corporate governance," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 81-126.
    7. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    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. Alex Edmans & Vivian W. Fang & Katharina A. Lewellen, 2013. "Equity Vesting and Managerial Myopia," NBER Working Papers 19407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Gan, Huiqi & Park, Myung S. & Suh, SangHyun, 2020. "Non-financial performance measures, CEO compensation, and firms’ future value," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 213-227.
    11. Röell, Ailsa & Peng, Lin, 2009. "Managerial Incentives and Stock Price Manipulation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7442, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Suzanne Bijkerk & Josse (J.) Delfgaauw & Vladimir (V.A.) Karamychev & Otto (O.H.) Swank, 2018. "Need to Know? On Information Systems in Firms," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 18-091/VII, Tinbergen Institute.
    13. Robert Jones & Yan Wu, 2010. "Executive compensation, earnings management and shareholder litigation," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 35(1), pages 1-20, July.
    14. Josef Schroth, 2015. "Managerial Compensation Duration and Stock Price Manipulation," Staff Working Papers 15-25, Bank of Canada.
    15. Lin, Tse-Chun & Liu, Jinyu & Ni, Xiaoran, 2022. "Foreign bank entry deregulation and stock market stability: Evidence from staggered regulatory changes," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 185-207.
    16. Armstrong, Christopher & Nicoletti, Allison & Zhou, Frank S., 2022. "Executive stock options and systemic risk," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(1), pages 256-276.
    17. King, Timothy & Srivastav, Abhishek & Williams, Jonathan, 2016. "What's in an education? Implications of CEO education for bank performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 287-308.
    18. Delfgaauw, Josse & Souverijn, Michiel, 2016. "Biased supervision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 107-125.
    19. Wang, Tracy Yue & Winton, Andrew, 2021. "Industry informational interactions and corporate fraud," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    20. Agliardi, Elettra & Andergassen, Rainer, 2009. "Last resort gambles, risky debt and liquidation policy," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 142-155, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:gam:jijfss:v:13:y:2025:i:4:p:181-:d:1761328. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.