Incentive Features in CEO Compensation: The Role of Regulation and Monitored Debt
41 Pages Posted: 31 Oct 2008
Date Written: October 2006
Abstract
We study CEO compensation in the banking industry by taking into account banks unique claim structure in the presence of two types of agency problems: the standard managerial agency problem as well as the risk-shifting problem between shareholders and debtholders. We empirically test two hypotheses derived from this framework: (1) the pay-for-performance sensitivity of bank CEO compensation decreases with the total leverage ratio; and (2) the pay-for-performance sensitivity of bank CEO compensation increases with the intensity of monitoring provided by regulators and nondepository (subordinated) debtholders. We construct an index of the intensity of outsider monitoring based on four variables: subordinated debt ratio, subordinated debt rating, non performing loan ratio and BOPEC rating assigned by regulators. We findsupporting evidence for both hypotheses. Our results hold after controlling for the endogeneity among compensation, leverage and monitoring. They are robust to various regression specifications and sample criteria.
Keywords: CEO compensation, pay-for-performance sensitivity, risk-shifting, agency problems, banking, regulation, subordinated debt
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