Abstract
We find that social capital, as captured by secular norms and social networks surrounding corporate headquarters, is negatively associated with levels of CEO compensation. This relation holds in a range of robustness tests including those that address omitted variable bias and reverse causality. Additionally, social capital reduces the likelihood that firms make opportunistic option grant awards that unduly favor CEOs, including lucky awards, backdated awards, and unscheduled awards. Social capital also lessens the accretive effect of CEO power on CEO compensation. These findings indicate that social capital mitigates agency problems by restraining managerial rent extraction in CEO compensation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 498-519 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Journal of Financial Economics |
| Volume | 133 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Backdating
- Executive compensation
- Opportunistic timing
- Social capital
- Social norms
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Accounting
- Finance
- Economics and Econometrics
- Strategy and Management
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