The Growth of Executive Pay

Lucian Bebchuk () and Yaniv Grinstein ()

No 11443, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper examines both empirically and theoretically the growth of U.S. executive pay during the period 1993-2003. During this period, pay has grown much beyond the increase that could be explained by changes in firm size, performance and industry classification. Had the relationship of compensation to size, performance and industry classification remained the same in 2003 as it was in 1993, mean compensation in 2003 would have been only about half of its actual size. During the 1993-2003 period, equity-based compensation has increased considerably in both new economy and old economy firms, but this growth has not been accompanied by a substitution effect, i.e., a reduction in non-equity compensation. The aggregate compensation paid by public companies to their top-five executives during the considered period added up to about $350 billion, and the ratio of this aggregate top-five compensation to the aggregate earnings of these firms increased from 5% in 1993-1995 to about 10% in 2001-2003. After presenting evidence about the growth of pay, we discuss alternative explanations for it. We examine how this growth could be explained under either the arm's length bargaining model of executive compensation or the managerial power model. Among other things, we discuss the relevance of the parallel rise in market capitalizations and in the use of equity-based compensation.

JEL-codes: D23 G32 G38 J33 J44 K22 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law
Note: CF LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (138)

Published as Bebchuk, Lucian A. and Yaniv Grinstein. “The Growth of Executive Pay.” Oxford Review of Economic Policy 21 (2005): 283-303.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11443.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Growth of Executive Pay (2005)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11443

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w11443

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().