IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/79675.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Applying economic psychology to the problem of executive compensation

Author

Listed:
  • Pepper, Alexander

Abstract

The conventional design of executive compensation plans is based on an outdated model of executive agency. Empirical work described in this article has provided a better understanding of the relationship between executives’ pay and their motivation by undertaking a detailed examination of the psychology of executive incentives. Four key points emerge. First, executives are much more risk averse than financial theory predicts. Secondly, executives are very high time discounters, thus reducing the perceived value of deferred rewards. Thirdly, intrinsic motivation is much more important than admitted by traditional economic theory. Fourthly, executives are more concerned about the perceived fairness of their awards relative to peers than in absolute amounts. Our research suggests that companies would be better off paying generous salaries, and using annual cash bonuses to incentivize desired actions and behaviors. Executives should be required to invest their bonuses in company shares until they have sufficient “skin in the game” to align their interests with shareholders. As far as possible the use of equity plans, especially complex, high-powered, performance-based plans should be kept to a minimum.

Suggested Citation

  • Pepper, Alexander, 2017. "Applying economic psychology to the problem of executive compensation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 79675, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:79675
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/79675/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Fried, Jesse & Walker, David I, 2002. "Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3558, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Bruno S. Frey, 1997. "Not Just for the Money," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1183.
    3. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    4. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie & Crossman, Alf, 2013. "Are long-term incentive plans an effective and efficient way of motivating senior executives?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 41818, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    8. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie, 2014. "The economic psychology of incentives: An international study of top managers," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 350-361.
    9. Martin J. Conyon & John E. Core & Wayne R. Guay, 2011. "Are U.S. CEOs Paid More Than U.K. CEOs? Inferences from Risk-adjusted Pay," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 24(2), pages 402-438.
    10. 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.
    11. Ainslie, George, 1991. "Derivation of "Rational" Economic Behavior from Hyperbolic Discount Curves," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 334-340, May.
    12. Lucian Bebchuk & Jesse Fried, 2002. "Power, rent extraction, and executive compensation," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(03), pages 23-28, October.
    13. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    14. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie, 2014. "The economic psychology of incentives: an international study of top managers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51655, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie, 2015. "Behavioral agency theory: new foundations for theorizing about executive compensation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 47569, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    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. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie, 2014. "The economic psychology of incentives: an international study of top managers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51655, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie, 2014. "The economic psychology of incentives: An international study of top managers," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 350-361.
    3. Pepper, Alexander & Gore, Julie, 2015. "Behavioral agency theory: new foundations for theorizing about executive compensation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 47569, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Daniel Beck & Gunther Friedl & Peter Schäfer, 2020. "Executive compensation in Germany," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(5), pages 787-824, June.
    5. Pepper, Alexander, 2020. "The behavioural economics of executive incentives," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 106145, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Yaowen Shan & Terry Walter, 2016. "Towards a Set of Design Principles for Executive Compensation Contracts," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 52(4), pages 619-684, December.
    7. Emanuela Ciapanna & Marco Taboga & Eliana Viviano, 2015. "Sectoral differences in managers’ compensation: insights from a matching model," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1000, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. 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.
    9. Willman, Paul & Pepper, Alexander, 2020. "The role played by large firms in generating income inequality: UK FTSE 100 pay practices in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103809, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Jean Canil & Bruce Rosser, 2015. "Evidence on exercise pricing in CEO option grants in two countries," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 383-410, November.
    11. 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.
    12. Willman, Paul & Pepper, Alexander, 2020. "The role played by large firms in generating income inequality: UK FTSE 100 pay practices in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101870, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Mohamed Khenissi & Peter Wirtz, 2013. "Processus Decisionnel En Matiere De Remuneration Des Dirigeants : Le Cas Vinci," Working Papers halshs-00850083, HAL.
    14. Catuogno, Simona & Arena, Claudia & Cirillo, Alessandro & Pennacchio, Luca, 2018. "Exploring the relation between family ownership and incentive stock options: The contingency of family leadership, board monitoring and financial crisis," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 59-72.
    15. Loureiro, Gilberto & Makhija, Anil K. & Zhang, Dan, 2011. "Why Do Some CEOs Work for a One-Dollary Salary?," Working Paper Series 2011-7, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    16. 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.
    17. Shi, Lina & Gong, Stephen & Wang, Xingang, 2021. "Social network, corporate governance, and rent extraction in CEO compensation: Evidence from spatial econometric models," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4).
    18. Calcagno, R. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2004. "Capital Structure and Managerial Compensation : The Effects of Renumeration Seniority," Discussion Paper 2004-120, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    20. Agarwal, Vikas & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naik, Narayan Y., 2009. "Role of managerial incentives and discretion in hedge fund performance," CFR Working Papers 04-04, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic psychology; executive compensation; motivation theory;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J50 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - General

    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:ehl:lserod:79675. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.