scholarly journals Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation

2002 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucian Arye Bebchuk ◽  
Jesse M. Fried ◽  
David I. Walker
GIS Business ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 01-13
Author(s):  
Simon Yang

This paper examines the relative sensitivity of CEO compensation of both acquiring and acquired firms in the top 30 U.S. largest corporate acquisitions in each year for the period of 2003 to 2012. We find that total compensation and bonus granted to executive compensation for acquired companies, not acquiring companies, are significantly related to the amount of acquisition deal even after the size and firm performance are controlled for. Both acquiring and acquired CEOs are found to make the significantly higher compensation than the matched sample firms in the same industry and calendar year. We also find that executives with higher managerial power, as measured by a lower salary-based compensation mix, prior to a corporate acquisition are more likely to receive a higher executive pay in the year of acquisition. The association between executive compensation and managerial power seems to be stronger for acquired firms than for acquiring firms in corporate acquisition. Overall, our findings suggest that corporate acquisition has higher impacts on executive compensation for acquired firm CEOs than for acquiring firm CEOs.


2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S Weisbach

This essay reviews Lucian A. Bebchuk and Jesse M. Fried's Pay without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation. Bebchuk and Fried criticize the standard view of executive compensation, in which executives negotiate contracts with shareholders that provide incentives that motivate them to maximize the shareholders' welfare. In contrast, Bebchuk and Fried argue that executive compensation is more consistent with executives who control their own boards and who maximize their own compensation subject to an “outrage constraint.” They provide a host of evidence consistent with this alternative viewpoint. The book can be evaluated from both positive and normative perspectives. From a positive perspective, much of the evidence they present, especially about the camouflage and risk-taking aspects of executive compensation systems, is fairly persuasive. However, from a normative perspective, the book conveys the idea that policy changes can dramatically improve executive compensation systems and consequently overall corporate performance. It is unclear to me how effective potential reforms designed to achieve such changes are likely to be in practice.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea W. Zanetti

This paper seeks to explain why and how executive severances of publicly-traded Canadian and U.S. companies have reached the financial levels they have, generating public and shareholder outrage and causing governments on both sides of the border to introduce new legislation. The paper investigates the role of the CEO, boards and shareholders in the setting of executive compensation. As the origins ofthe three roles lie in business corporation law, the legislative framework of Canadian and U.S. companies is presented to permit the reader to understand the legal accountabilities and rights of each of the three parties. The paper identifies that executives may exercise substantial influence over boards, possibly impeding effective governance. The paper concludes that effective governance, including greater board independence and board competence in executive compensation matters will help to improve board functioning and minimize the effects of the agency problem, cronyism and managerial power.


Author(s):  
Stephen P. Ferris ◽  
Kenneth A. Kim ◽  
Pattanaporn Kitsabunnarat ◽  
Takeshi Nishikawa

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Odunayo Magret Olarewaju ◽  
Stephen Oseko Migiro ◽  
Mabutho Sibanda

This study examines the roles of agency cost (monitoring and bonding cost) on compensation of managers with a view from the managerial-power approach to agency cost. We modelled managers’ compensation and agency cost of banks to emphasise the potential influence of agency cost on managers’ compensation. A Panel Generalised Least Square model was estimated on four largely-controlled commercial banks in South Africa over the period 2010-2015. The result shows that shareholders’ fund, management share option, monitoring and bonding cost were strongly significant in explaining the managers’ compensation in the banks. Therefore, in the South African banking sector, compensation of managers should be based on their managerial power and not only on the principle of optimal-contracting. It is recommended, among others, that monitoring and bonding costs in the South African banks should be re-emphasised and strictly committed to. This should be so because there are direct effects of these costs on managers’ compensation which might be the reason for the persistent agency problem in the banks.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-247
Author(s):  
Michaël Dewally ◽  
Susan Flaherty ◽  
Daniel Singer

This study examines the impact of organizational culture on executive compensation systems. Organizational culture is found to have a strong impact on the relationship between CEO equity compensation and organizational effectiveness. Compensation patterns found in traditional organizations are interpreted to reflect a Managerial Power Theory of executive compensation. In contrast, in positive organizations, the exercise of managerial power appears to be constrained by the internal values of that organization and the need for the leader to maintain his or her authenticity. Female executives who have penetrated the glass ceiling in both traditional and positive organizations are found to contribute to a culture in which executive compensation reflects an Optimal Contract approach to principle-agent relationships for CEOs and shareholders.


Author(s):  
Graeme Guthrie

This chapter uses pay in the home construction industry during the recent housing boom and bust to illustrate the second of the two competing theories that economists use to understand executive compensation: the managerial power hypothesis. According to this theory, boards at some firms have such weak bargaining positions that the only constraint on executive pay is the prospect of shareholder outrage. The theory’s central prediction is that weak boards and strong CEOs combine to find ways to pay executives that reduce the threat of shareholder outrage. This chapter develops this prediction and demonstrates its ability to explain observed pay practices that have the effect of camouflaging high pay levels.


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