Optimal Executive Compensation Dispersion and Product Market Structure
- 1 Economics Department, University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA
- 2 Economics Department, York University, Toronto, Canada
- 3 School of Economics and Management, Xi’an Shiyou University, Xi’an, China
Abstract
Executive compensation is considered as one of the most crucial issues for the corporate governance. The proper executive compensation dispersion can be employed to motivate the top managers and then to boost the firm performance, but the definition of “proper” varies in the existing literature. The bigger dispersion is better for firm performance based on Tournament Theory but smaller one is better according to some other theories. In this paper, we try to theoretically study the optimal executive compensation by considering the internal and external situation of the firm at the same time, especially the influence of product market. We find the optimal compensation dispersion will increase (decrease) if more (less) firms enter the market when the cost of sabotage increases more rapidly than the cost of effort, vice versa. The findings imply the firm should increase (decrease) the compensation dispersion if the intensity of competition in product market decreases (increases) when sabotage is expensive and the firm should increase (decrease) the compensation dispersion if the intensity of competition in product market increases (decreases) when sabotage is cheap.
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