Do executive compensation contracts maximize firm value? Indications from a quasi-natural experiment

Menachem (Meni) Abudy, Dan Amiram*, Oded Rozenbaum, Efrat Shust

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

We find significant positive abnormal returns surrounding a surprising and quick enactment of a law that restricts executive pay to a binding upper limit in a few industries. We find that the effect is concentrated only for firms in which the restriction is binding. We also find that the increase in value is greater for firms with weaker corporate governance and smaller for firms that grant a greater portion of equity-based compensation to their executives. These results provide indications that, on average, compensation contracts can be set in a way that does not maximize firm value.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105787
JournalJournal of Banking and Finance
Volume114
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2020

Funding

FundersFunder number
Henry Crown Institute of Business Research in Israel
Humboldt University of Berlin
Securities and Exchange Commission
Columbia University
Bar-Ilan University
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Wuhan University
Universiteit van Tilburg
European Accounting Association

    Keywords

    • Executive compensation
    • Governance
    • Optimal contracts

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