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Executive Pay and Performance in the UK

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  • Paul Gregg
  • Sarah Jewell
  • Ian Tonks

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between executive cash compensation and company performance for a sample of large UK companies, focusing in particular on the financial services industry, since incentive misalignment has been blamed as one of the factors causing the global financial crisis of 2007/08. We show that base salary and bonuses of UK executives has increased substantially over this period 1994-2006, and we provide evidence on the movement in the pay-performance sensitivity over time. We find that although pay in the financial services sector is high, the cash pay-performance sensitivity of banks and financial firms is not significantly higher than in other sectors. We claim that this finding of a low sensitivity of pay and performance questions the rationale for regulatory changes to remuneration practices in the banking sector. For all companies we identify an asymmetric relationship between pay and performance: for companies in which stock returns are relatively high, pay-performance elasticities are high, but we find that executive pay is less sensitive to performance when stock returns are low.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Gregg & Sarah Jewell & Ian Tonks, 2010. "Executive Pay and Performance in the UK," FMG Discussion Papers dp657, Financial Markets Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:fmg:fmgdps:dp657
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Habib Jouber & Hamadi Fakhfakh, 2011. "Does CEOs Performance-based Compensation Waits on Shareholders? A Cross National Analysis," International Journal of Business Administration, International Journal of Business Administration, Sciedu Press, vol. 2(3), pages 68-82, August.
    2. Alves, Paulo & Couto, Eduardo Barbosa & Francisco, Paulo Morais, 2016. "Executive pay and performance in Portuguese listed companies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 184-195.
    3. Habib Jouber, 2016. "The relationship between CEO performance-based compensation and shareholders value creation: a cross national analysis," International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(1), pages 1-22.
    4. Jay Fattorusso & Rodion Skovoroda & Trevor Buck & Alistair Bruce, 2007. "UK Executive Bonuses and Transparency — A Research Note," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 518-536, September.
    5. Jerry Coakley & Stavroula Iliopoulou, 2006. "Bidder CEO and Other Executive Compensation in UK M&As," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 12(4), pages 609-631, September.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M52 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects

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