IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp14803.html

The Market for CEOs: Building Legacy and Feeling Empowered Matter

Author

Listed:
  • Dupuy, Arnaud

    (University of Luxembourg)

  • Kennes, John

    (Aarhus University)

  • Lyng, Ran Sun

    (University of Toronto)

Abstract

We develop a two-sided multidimensional matching model of the market for CEOs that allows for both pecuniary and non-pecuniary (amenity) compensation. The model is estimated by maximum likelihood estimation using matched CEO-firm data from Denmark. We show that CEOs have preferences for building legacy and gaining empowerment. The legacy mechanism explains why there is low mobility in the CEO market, even though firms demand general CEO skills. The empowerment mechanism explains why CEOs are willing to sacrifice significant pecuniary income to manage high equity firms. The overall conclusion is that job amenities matter in the market for CEOs.

Suggested Citation

  • Dupuy, Arnaud & Kennes, John & Lyng, Ran Sun, 2021. "The Market for CEOs: Building Legacy and Feeling Empowered Matter," IZA Discussion Papers 14803, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp14803.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eugene Choo & Aloysius Siow, 2006. "Who Marries Whom and Why," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(1), pages 175-201, February.
    2. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2014. "Personality Traits and the Marriage Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(6), pages 1271-1319.
    3. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    4. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Dirk Jenter, 2017. "Executive Compensation: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 23596, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Steven N. Kaplan, 1997. "Corporate Governance And Corporate Performance: A Comparison Of Germany, Japan, And The U.S," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 9(4), pages 86-93, January.
    6. Carola Frydman, 2019. "Rising Through the Ranks: The Evolution of the Market for Corporate Executives, 1936–2003," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(11), pages 4951-4979, November.
    7. Scott E. Yonker, 2017. "Do Managers Give Hometown Labor an Edge?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(10), pages 3581-3604.
    8. Henrik Jacobsen Kleven & Martin B. Knudsen & Claus Thustrup Kreiner & Søren Pedersen & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence From a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(3), pages 651-692, May.
    9. Jeremy T. Fox, 2007. "Semiparametric estimation of multinomial discrete-choice models using a subset of choices," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 1002-1019, December.
    10. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Executive Compensation: A Modern Primer," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1232-1287, December.
    11. Alvin E. Roth, 2002. "The Economist as Engineer: Game Theory, Experimentation, and Computation as Tools for Design Economics," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1341-1378, July.
    12. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/361levbcs399s9oa154em6h9jl is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Gary S. Becker, 1964. "Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck-5, January.
    14. Torben M. Andersen & Michael Svarer, 2007. "Flexicurity: Labour Market Performance in Denmark," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 53(3), pages 389-429, September.
    15. Edmans, Alex & Gosling, Tom & Jenter, Dirk, 2023. "CEO compensation: Evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    16. Jeremy T. Fox, 2010. "Identification in matching games," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 1(2), pages 203-254, November.
    17. Søren Leth-Petersen, 2010. "Intertemporal Consumption and Credit Constraints: Does Total Expenditure Respond to an Exogenous Shock to Credit?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1080-1103, June.
    18. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    19. Katrine Jakobsen & Kristian Jakobsen & Henrik Kleven & Gabriel Zucman, 2020. "Wealth Taxation and Wealth Accumulation: Theory and Evidence From Denmark," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(1), pages 329-388.
    20. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    21. Tor Eriksson & Nicolai Kristensen, 2014. "Wages or Fringes? Some Evidence on Trade-Offs and Sorting," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(4), pages 899-928.
    22. Dupuy, Arnaud & Weber, Simon, 2018. "Marital Patterns and Income Inequality," IZA Discussion Papers 11572, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    23. Guoli Chen & Sterling Huang & Philipp Meyer-Doyle & Denisa Mindruta, 2020. "Generalist vs. Specialist CEOs and Acquisitions," Working Papers hal-03036779, HAL.
    24. Lausten, Mette, 2002. "CEO turnover, firm performance and corporate governance: empirical evidence on Danish firms," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 391-414, March.
    25. Sherwin Rosen, 1982. "Authority, Control, and the Distribution of Earnings," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(2), pages 311-323, Autumn.
    26. Yoram Ben-Porath, 1967. "The Production of Human Capital and the Life Cycle of Earnings," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(4), pages 352-352.
    27. Alfred Galichon & Scott Duke Kominers & Simon Weber, 2019. "Costly Concessions: An Empirical Framework for Matching with Imperfectly Transferable Utility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(6), pages 2875-2925.
    28. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    29. Focke, Florens & Maug, Ernst & Niessen-Ruenzi, Alexandra, 2017. "The impact of firm prestige on executive compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 313-336.
    30. Pierre-André Chiappori & Bernard Salanié & Yoram Weiss, 2017. "Partner Choice, Investment in Children, and the Marital College Premium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2109-2167, August.
    31. Richard Thaler & Sherwin Rosen, 1976. "The Value of Saving a Life: Evidence from the Labor Market," NBER Chapters, in: Household Production and Consumption, pages 265-302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon, 2014. "Personality traits and the marriage market," Post-Print hal-03470458, HAL.
    33. Kevin J. Murphy & Ján Zábojník, 2004. "CEO Pay and Appointments: A Market-Based Explanation for Recent Trends," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 192-196, May.
    34. Eriksson, Tor, 1999. "Executive Compensation and Tournament Theory: Empirical Tests on Danish Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 262-280, April.
    35. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling and Earnings," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 41-63, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1, January.
    37. Donald Boyd & Hamilton Lankford & Susanna Loeb & James Wyckoff, 2013. "Analyzing the Determinants of the Matching of Public School Teachers to Jobs: Disentangling the Preferences of Teachers and Employers," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 83-117.
    38. Thomsen, Steen, 2016. "The Nordic Corporate Governance Model," Management and Organization Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 189-204, March.
    39. Steven N. Kaplan & Mark M. Klebanov & Morten Sorensen, 2012. "Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 67(3), pages 973-1007, June.
    40. Alex Edmans & Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2009. "A Multiplicative Model of Optimal CEO Incentives in Market Equilibrium," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(12), pages 4881-4917, December.
    41. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    42. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5kmb4ke32h9ur9159sab6hvkck is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Jeremy T. Fox, 2018. "Estimating matching games with transfers," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), pages 1-38, March.
    44. Yihui Pan, 2017. "The Determinants and Impact of Executive-Firm Matches," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(1), pages 185-200, January.
    45. Marianne Bertrand & Antoinette Schoar, 2003. "Managing with Style: The Effect of Managers on Firm Policies," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1169-1208.
    46. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Søren Leth-Petersen & Torben Heien Nielsen & Tore Olsen, 2014. "Active vs. Passive Decisions and Crowd-Out in Retirement Savings Accounts: Evidence from Denmark," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1141-1219.
    47. Arnaud Dupuy & Alfred Galichon & Sonia Jaffe & Scott Duke Kominers, 2020. "Taxation In Matching Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1591-1634, November.
    48. Isaac Sorkin, 2018. "Ranking Firms Using Revealed Preference," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1331-1393.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Liang Chen & Eugene Choo & Alfred Galichon & Simon Weber, 2023. "Existence of a Competitive Equilibrium with Substitutes, with Applications to Matching and Discrete Choice Models," Papers 2309.11416, arXiv.org.
    2. Van Landeghem, Bert & Dohmen, Thomas & Hole, Arne Risa & Künn-Nelen, Annemarie, 2024. "The value of commuting time, flexibility, and job security: Evidence from current and recent jobseekers in Flanders," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).

    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. Arnaud Dupuy & John Kennes & Ran Sun Lyng, 2023. "Job Amenities in the Market for CEOs," Economics Working Papers 2023-08, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    2. Jenter, Dirk & Cziraki, Peter, 2021. "The Market for CEOs," CEPR Discussion Papers 16281, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Fernando Núñez & Ángel Arcos-Vargas & Carlos Usabiaga & Pablo Álvarez-de-Toledo, 2022. "On directors’ compensation: a multilevel analysis of Spanish listed companies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 2173-2207, October.
    4. Li, Si & Perez, M. Fabricio, 2021. "The evolution of pay premiums for managerial attributes," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    5. Alfred Galichon & Bernard Salani'e, 2021. "Cupid's Invisible Hand: Social Surplus and Identification in Matching Models," Papers 2106.02371, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    6. Gualdani, Cristina & Sinha, Shruti, 2019. "Partial identification in matching models for the marriage market," TSE Working Papers 19-993, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Aug 2022.
    7. Antonio Falato & Dan Li & Todd Milbourn, 2015. "Which Skills Matter in the Market for CEOs? Evidence from Pay for CEO Credentials," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 61(12), pages 2845-2869, December.
    8. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Aigerim Yergabulova & Dinara Alpysbayeva & Venkat Subramanian, 2023. "Wage dispersion and firm performance: evidence from Kazakhstan," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 45(3), pages 425-448, July.
    10. Dupuy, Arnaud & Galichon, Alfred, 2017. "A Note on the Estimation of Job Amenities and Labor Productivity," IZA Discussion Papers 10900, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Jeremy T. Fox, 2018. "Estimating matching games with transfers," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(1), pages 1-38, March.
    12. Esben Scrivers Andersen, 2024. "Note on solving one-to-one matching models with linear transferable utility," Papers 2409.05518, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    13. Sinha, Shruti, 2018. "Identification in One-to-One Matching Models with Nonparametric Unobservables," TSE Working Papers 18-897, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    14. Liang Chen & Eugene Choo & Alfred Galichon & Simon Weber, 2023. "Existence of a Competitive Equilibrium with Substitutes, with Applications to Matching and Discrete Choice Models," Papers 2309.11416, arXiv.org.
    15. Baiyu Dong & Yu-Wei Hsieh & Xing Zhang, 2022. "Implementing Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Empirical Matching Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 59(1), pages 1-32, January.
    16. Arnaud Dupuy & Simon Weber, 2022. "Marriage Market Counterfactuals Using Matching Models," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 29-43, January.
    17. Cronqvist, Henrik & Fahlenbrach, Rüdiger, 2013. "CEO contract design: How do strong principals do it?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(3), pages 659-674.
    18. Dupuy, Arnaud & Galichon, Alfred & Henry, Marc, 2014. "Entropy Methods for Identifying Hedonic Models," IZA Discussion Papers 8178, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Nikhil Agarwal & Eric Budish, 2021. "Market Design," NBER Working Papers 29367, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5qh5s98no08b0p4s2sgkev0893 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & John, Kose & Waisman, Maya, 2016. "Urban Agglomeration and CEO Compensation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(6), pages 1925-1953, December.
    22. Ferreira, Daniel & Nikolowa, Radoslawa, 2023. "Talent discovery and poaching under asymmetric information," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116044, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C35 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions
    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

    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:iza:izadps:dp14803. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.