IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/iuiwop/1458.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Relative CEO Pay on Employee Productivity

Author

Listed:
  • Afzali, Aaron

    (Hanken School of Economics)

  • Oxelheim, Lars

    (School of Business and Law, University of Agder, Norway)

  • Randøy, Trond

    (School of Business and Law, University of Agder, Norway)

  • Paulo Vieito, João

    (Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, School of Business Studies, Portugal)

Abstract

In this study, we examine the relationship between within-firm pay inequality and employee productivity. We use hand-collected data on a sample of S&P 1500 companies from 2018-2022 and find a concave relationship between the relative CEO pay and employee productivity. Consistent with tournament theory, we show that the pay gap between the CEO and the Vice Presidents initially positively affects employee productivity. However, this positive effect only works up to a certain level, at which - as expressed by the CEO-employee pay ratio - employee discontent initiates a fall in firm-level productivity. We identify this tipping point as the point at which CEO pay exceeds the median worker’s pay by a factor of 40. The average CEO-employee pay ratio in our sample is 193:1, suggesting that most firms could have avoided a fall in productivity by reducing their CEO-employee pay ratio. Our results remain robust after controlling for endogeneity. From a public policy perspective, our findings pave the way for corporate self-regulation of CEO pay to avoid politically imposed hard laws.

Suggested Citation

  • Afzali, Aaron & Oxelheim, Lars & Randøy, Trond & Paulo Vieito, João, 2023. "The Impact of Relative CEO Pay on Employee Productivity," Working Paper Series 1458, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifn.se/wfiles/wp/wp1458.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Faleye, Olubunmi & Mehrotra, Vikas & Morck, Randall, 2006. "When Labor Has a Voice in Corporate Governance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 489-510, September.
    2. Jayant R. Kale & Ebru Reis & Anand Venkateswaran, 2009. "Rank‐Order Tournaments and Incentive Alignment: The Effect on Firm Performance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(3), pages 1479-1512, June.
    3. Henrik Cronqvist & Fredrik Heyman & Mattias Nilsson & Helena Svaleryd & Jonas Vlachos, 2009. "Do Entrenched Managers Pay Their Workers More?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 309-339, February.
    4. Bassett, Michael & Koh, Ping-Sheng & Tutticci, Irene, 2007. "The association between employee stock option disclosures and corporate governance: Evidence from an enhanced disclosure regime," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 303-322.
    5. Byrd, John & Fraser, Donald R. & Scott Lee, D. & Tartaroglu, Semih, 2012. "Are two heads better than one? Evidence from the thrift crisis," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 957-967.
    6. Bae, Kee-Hong & Kang, Jun-Koo & Wang, Jin, 2011. "Employee treatment and firm leverage: A test of the stakeholder theory of capital structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 130-153, April.
    7. Serfling, Matthew A., 2014. "CEO age and the riskiness of corporate policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 251-273.
    8. repec:bla:jfinan:v:58:y:2003:i:3:p:1301-1327 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Fredrik Heyman, 2005. "Pay inequality and firm performance: evidence from matched employer-employee data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1313-1327.
    10. Claudine Gartenberg & Julie Wulf, 2020. "Competition and Pay Inequality Within and Between Firms," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5925-5943, December.
    11. Kini, Omesh & Williams, Ryan, 2012. "Tournament incentives, firm risk, and corporate policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 350-376.
    12. Cynthia J. Campbell & Rosita P. Chang & Jack C. DeJong Jr. & Robert Doktor & Lars Oxelheim & Trond Randøy, 2016. "The Impact of CEO Long-term Equity-based Compensation Incentives on Economic Growth in Collectivist versus Individualist Countries," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 15(2), pages 109-133, Summer.
    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. Yihui Pan & Elena S. Pikulina & Stephan Siegel & Tracy Yue Wang, 2022. "Do Equity Markets Care about Income Inequality? Evidence from Pay Ratio Disclosure," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(2), pages 1371-1411, April.
    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. Sun, Sophia Li & Habib, Ahsan & Huang, Hedy Jiaying, 2019. "Tournament incentives and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 93-117.
    2. Edmans, Alex & Gosling, Tom & Jenter, Dirk, 2023. "CEO compensation: Evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    3. Papageorgiadis, Nikolaos & Procopiou, Andreas & Sofka, Wolfgang, 2023. "Unintended consequences of outcome based compensation – How CEO bonuses, stocks and stock options affect their firms' patent litigation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(8).
    4. Roya Taherifar & Mark J. Holmes & Gazi M. Hassan, 2021. "Is performance affected by the CEO-Employee pay gap? Evidence from Australia," Working Papers in Economics 21/14, University of Waikato.
    5. Alexandre Garel & Arthur Petit-Romec, 2021. "Engaging Employees for the Long Run: Long-Term Investors and Employee-Related CSR," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 35-63, November.
    6. Boubaker, Sabri & Chourou, Lamia & Haddar, Marwa & Hamza, Taher, 2019. "Does employee welfare affect corporate debt maturity?," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 674-686.
    7. Zhao, Hong, 2018. "Executive labor market segmentation: How local market density affects incentives and performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-21.
    8. Sun, Sophia Li & Habib, Ahsan, 2020. "Determinants and consequences of tournament incentives: A survey of the literature in accounting and finance," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Mekhaimer, Mohamed & Abakah, Alex Annan & Ibrahim, Awad & Hussainey, Khaled, 2022. "Subordinate executives' horizon and firm policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    10. Huang, Hung-Yi & Yan, Cheng & Ho, Kung-Cheng, 2022. "Does managerial compensation influence price efficiency?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Fu, Fanjie & Fang, Jing & Zhang, Fan & Yao, Shujie & Ou, Jinghua, 2024. "CEOs' hometown connections and corporate risk-taking: Evidence from China," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    12. Faleye, Olubunmi & Reis, Ebru & Venkateswaran, Anand, 2013. "The determinants and effects of CEO–employee pay ratios," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3258-3272.
    13. Vasilii Erokhin & Dmitry Endovitsky & Alexey Bobryshev & Natalia Kulagina & Anna Ivolga, 2019. "Management Accounting Change as a Sustainable Economic Development Strategy during Pre-Recession and Recession Periods: Evidence from Russia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-23, June.
    14. Lu, Yun & Ntim, Collins G. & Zhang, Qingjing & Li, Pingli, 2022. "Board of directors’ attributes and corporate outcomes: A systematic literature review and future research agenda," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Anup Banerjee & Mattias Nordqvist & Karin Hellerstedt, 2020. "The role of the board chair—A literature review and suggestions for future research," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(6), pages 372-405, November.
    16. Maida, Agata & Pezone, Vincenzo, 2024. "CEO Pay Disclosure and Within-Firm Wage Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 17243, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Ferrell, Allen & Liang, Hao & Renneboog, Luc, 2016. "Socially responsible firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(3), pages 585-606.
    18. He, Xiaoxiao & Zhu, Margaret Rui, 2020. "Are interim CEOs just caretakers?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    19. Teresa Chu & In-Mu Haw & Simon S. M. Ho & Xu Zhang, 2020. "Labor protection, ownership concentration, and cost of equity capital: international evidence," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1351-1387, May.
    20. Talavera, Oleksandr & Yin, Shuxing & Zhang, Mao, 2021. "Tournament incentives, age diversity and firm performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 139-162.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    CEO pay; CEO pay-employee ratio; Employee productivity; Tournament incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill
    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation

    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:hhs:iuiwop:1458. 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: Elisabeth Gustafsson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iuiiise.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.