The impact of firm prestige on executive compensation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Focke, Florens; Maug, Ernst; Niessen-Ruenzi, Alexandra
• 署名单位: University of Mannheim
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2016.09.011
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 313-336
• 关键词: ceo compensation; Firm prestige; social status; Career benefits

摘要

We show that chief executive officers (CEOs) of prestigious firms earn less. Total compensation is on average 8% lower for firms listed in Fortune's ranking of America's most admired companies. We suggest that CEOs are willing to trade off status and career benefits from working for a publicly admired company against additional monetary compensation. Our identification strategy is based on matched sample analyses, difference-in-differences regressions, and a regression discontinuity design. We perform several robustness checks and exclude many alternative explanations, including that firm prestige just proxies for better corporate governance or for increased exposure of the pay-setting process to media attention. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.