IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v15y2025i1p21582440251327538.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Utility Firm Performance & Executive Compensation

Author

Listed:
  • Ted Peterson
  • Kaiyuan Yang
  • Chenxi Lin

Abstract

Corporate governance remains a focal point for policymakers, investors, academics, and the public. While existing research has delved into the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) compensation and firm stock performance, the findings have been inconclusive. Notably, the investor-owned public utilities sector faces distinct governance challenges due to private and public pressures. In this study, we examine CEO pay within publicly traded large-cap U.S. utilities from 2016 to 2020, aiming to gauge performance. Our research design incorporates statistical procedures involving correlations and t-tests to analyze these relationships comprehensively. Over the specified period, the utility industry generally underperformed the S&P 500 benchmark. Our findings affirm a positive correlation between CEO compensation and stock performance providing both practical and scholarly implications. Particularly, an increase in CEO total compensation corresponds to improved stock performance. Additionally, we identify significant associations between CEO pay increments and the firm's performance relative to the utility index (VPU). We advocate for further investigation to validate these relationships across diverse time frames and even industries, emphasizing their significance.

Suggested Citation

  • Ted Peterson & Kaiyuan Yang & Chenxi Lin, 2025. "Utility Firm Performance & Executive Compensation," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(1), pages 21582440251, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:21582440251327538
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440251327538
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251327538
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440251327538?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
    ---><---

    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:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:21582440251327538. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.