We investigate whether and how executives' social interactions affect their compensation. Using the social networks among 2,936 chief executive officers (CEOs) during 1999-2008, we report that socially connected CEOs receive significantly more similar compensation than non-connected CEOs. This...

We find evidence that labor unions affect CEO compensation. First, we find that firms with strong unions pay their CEOs less. The negative effect is robust to various tests for endogeneity, including cross-sectional variations and a regression discontinuity design. Second, we find that CEO...

We examine the effects of Chinese import penetration on executive compensation of US firms. We find that import penetration reduces executives' total compensation, stock grants, wealth-performance sensitivity, and opportunistic grant timing, suggesting that competition mitigates agency problems...

We examine the effect of competitive shocks on executive compensation in the pharmaceutical sector. When a pharmaceutical firm receives a breakthrough therapy designation (BTD), its rivals respond by increasing option-based compensation for CEOs and other executives. The rivals also escalate...