In this paper we compare the relations between the changes in the personal wealth of CEOs and firm performance among Japanese and American companies. Using a personal income measure imputed from annual personal income tax amounts for Japanese executives, we show that Japanese and US CEOs are...

For 174 large Japanese corporations during 1992-1996, we find that top executive pay is higher in firms with weaker corporate governance mechanisms, controlling for standard economic determinants of pay. We use management ownership and family control (“the ownership mechanisms”), and...