Despite its potential role, CEO quality has been inadequately addressed in CEO compensation research. Using an Australian sample of 571 firms, this paper provides evidence that CEO quality, measured by CEO reputation and tenure, has a positive effect on firm performance, and explains...

We examine the effect of say on pay regulation in the United Kingdom (UK). Consistent with the view that shareholders regard say on pay as a value-creating mechanism, the regulation's announcement triggered a positive stock price reaction at firms with weak penalties for poor performance. UK...

In this study, I summarize the current state of executive compensation, discuss measurement and incentive issues, document recent trends in executive pay in both U.S. and international firms, and analyze the evolution of executive pay over the past century. Most recent analyses of executive...

This study examines determinants of chairman compensation in a supervisory board setting and, specifically, the relationship between chairman and CEO compensation. Using a sample of publicly listed firms in Sweden, the study indicates that chairman compensation – despite its fixed nature –...

Clawbacks are contractual provisions in executive compensation contracts that allow for an ex post recoupment of variable pay if certain triggering conditions are met. As a result of regulatory responses to financial crises and corporate scandals as well as of growing shareholder pressure to...

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on executive compensation. We start by presenting data on the level of CEO and other top executive pay over time and across firms, the changing composition of pay; and the strength of executive incentives. We compare pay in U.S. public...

We document that firms whose compensation peers experience weak say on pay votes reduce CEO compensation following those votes. Reductions reflect proxy adviser concerns about peers' compensation contracts and are stronger when CEOs receive excess compensation, when they compete more closely...

Relative performance evaluation (RPE) in CEO compensation can be used as a commitment device to pay CEOs for their revealed relative talent. We find evidence consistent with the talent-retention hypothesis, using two different approaches. First, we examine the RPE terms in compensation contracts...

Given CEOs' substantial equity portfolios, much recent literature on CEO incentives regards cash-based bonus plans as largely irrelevant, begging the question of why nearly all CEO compensation plans include such bonuses. We develop a new measure of bonus plan incentives, and document that...