Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem

Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem PDF Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agency (Law)
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
This paper provides an overview of the main theoretical elements and empirical underpinnings of a managerial power' approach to executive compensation. Under this approach, the design of executive compensation is viewed not only as an instrument for addressing the agency problem between managers and shareholders but also as part of the agency problem itself. Boards of publicly traded companies with dispersed ownership, we argue, cannot be expected to bargain at arm's length with managers. As a result, managers wield substantial influence over their own pay arrangements, and they have an interest in reducing the saliency of the amount of their pay and the extent to which that pay is de-coupled from managers' performance. We show that the managerial power approach can explain many features of the executive compensation landscape, including ones that many researchers have long viewed as puzzling. Among other things, we discuss option plan design, stealth compensation, executive loans, payments to departing executives, retirement benefits, the use of compensation consultants, and the observed relationship between CEO power and pay. We also explain how managerial influence might lead to substantially inefficient arrangements that produce weak or even perverse incentives.

Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem

Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem PDF Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agency (Law)
Languages : en
Pages : 44

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Book Description
This paper provides an overview of the main theoretical elements and empirical underpinnings of a managerial power' approach to executive compensation. Under this approach, the design of executive compensation is viewed not only as an instrument for addressing the agency problem between managers and shareholders but also as part of the agency problem itself. Boards of publicly traded companies with dispersed ownership, we argue, cannot be expected to bargain at arm's length with managers. As a result, managers wield substantial influence over their own pay arrangements, and they have an interest in reducing the saliency of the amount of their pay and the extent to which that pay is de-coupled from managers' performance. We show that the managerial power approach can explain many features of the executive compensation landscape, including ones that many researchers have long viewed as puzzling. Among other things, we discuss option plan design, stealth compensation, executive loans, payments to departing executives, retirement benefits, the use of compensation consultants, and the observed relationship between CEO power and pay. We also explain how managerial influence might lead to substantially inefficient arrangements that produce weak or even perverse incentives.

Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem

Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem PDF Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
This paper provides an overview of the main theoretical elements and empirical underpinnings of a managerial power approach to executive compensation. Under this approach, the design of executive compensation is viewed not only as an instrument for addressing the agency problem between managers and shareholders but also as part of the agency problem itself. Boards of publicly traded companies with dispersed ownership, we argue, cannot be expected to bargain at arm's length with managers. As a result, managers wield substantial influence over their own pay arrangements, and they have an interest in reducing the saliency of the amount of their pay and the extent to which that pay is de-coupled from managers' performance. We show that the managerial power approach can explain many features of the executive compensation landscape, including ones that many researchers have long viewed as puzzling. Among other things, we discuss option plan design, stealth compensation, executive loans, payments to departing executives, retirement benefits, the use of compensation consultants, and the observed relationship between CEO power and pay. We also explain how managerial influence might lead to substantially inefficient arrangements that produce weak or even perverse incentives.

An Introduction to Executive Compensation

An Introduction to Executive Compensation PDF Author: Steven Balsam
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080490425
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
General readers have no idea why people should care about what executives are paid and why they are paid the way they are. That's the reason that The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, and other popular and practitioner publications have regular coverage on them. This book not only proposes a reason--executives need incentives in order to maximize firm value (economists call this "agency theory")--it also describes the nature and design of executive compensation practices. Those incentives can take the form of benefits (salary, stock options), perquisites (reflecting the status of the executive within the organizational culture. This book is important because it takes the elements of an executive compensation package apart, analyzing them in the contexts of both economic theory and corporate practice and then explains how, under varying conditions, one might construct a compensation package that optimizes an executive's and a corporation's performance. Key Features * Presents an objective analysis of current executive compensation practices * Comprehensively reviews of academic literature and extant practice * Explains and illustrates the various components of the compensation package * Discusses the incentive, financial reporting, tax, political, equity, and firm value effects of those components

Agency Theory and Executive Pay

Agency Theory and Executive Pay PDF Author: Alexander Pepper
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319999699
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 133

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Book Description
This new book examines the relationship between agency theory and executive pay. It argues that while Jensen and Meckling (1976) were right in their analysis of the agency problem in public corporations they were wrong about the proposed solutions. Drawing on ideas from economics, psychology, sociology and the philosophy of science, the author explains how standard agency theory has contributed to the problem of executive pay rather than solved it. The book explores why companies should be regarded as real entities not legal fictions, how executive pay in public corporations can be conceptualised as a collective action problem and how behavioral science can help in the design of optimal incentive arrangements. An insightful and revolutionary read for those researching corporate governance, HRM and organisation theory, this useful book offers potential solutions to some of the problems with executive pay and the standard model of agency.

Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance PDF Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674020634
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.

Research Handbook on Executive Pay

Research Handbook on Executive Pay PDF Author: John S. Beasley
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1781005109
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 553

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Book Description
Research on executive compensation has exploded in recent years, and this volume of specially commissioned essays brings the reader up-to-date on all of the latest developments in the field. Leading corporate governance scholars from a range of countries set out their views on four main areas of executive compensation: the history and theory of executive compensation, the structure of executive pay, corporate governance and executive compensation, and international perspectives on executive pay. The authors analyze the two dominant theoretical approaches – managerial power theory and optimal contracting theory – and examine their impact on executive pay levels and the practices of concentrated and dispersed share ownership in corporations. The effectiveness of government regulation of executive pay and international executive pay practices in Australia, the US, Europe, China, India and Japan are also discussed. A timely study of a controversial topic, the Handbook will be an essential resource for students, scholars and practitioners of law, finance, business and accounting.

Pay Equity in CEO Compensation and Agency Problems

Pay Equity in CEO Compensation and Agency Problems PDF Author: Jeongil Seo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description


Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance PDF Author: Lucian Bebchuk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, "Pay Without Performance" points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.

The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation

The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation PDF Author: Bruce R. Ellig
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 9780071399722
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
Strategies for gaining a powerful edge in the executive talent wars The competition for executive talent is fierce, making it imperative that executive compensation programs become an integral part of every company's strategic business plan. The Complete Guide to Executive Compensation provides in-depth coverage of current issues and trends in designing and administering executive compensation packages that are strategically, economically, and culturally sound. Renowned compensation and benefit expert Bruce Ellig begins by providing guidance for board members and company executives on defining a company's organization, culture, and business strategy, in order to establish a framework for executive compensation. He then discusses the often difficultbut essentialissues within that framework, including: Pay positioningrelative to the competitive environment Risk profilethe mix of salary, incentive compensation, and benefits Leveragethe relationship between incentive plan payouts and performance Timingthe mix of short- versus long-term incentive programs Incentive plan designobjectives, performance measures, and participation

Agency Theory and Executive Compensation

Agency Theory and Executive Compensation PDF Author: Ray W. Atchinson (Ii)
Publisher: ProQuest
ISBN: 9780549333975
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description