← Search

Journal of Finance Vol. 58 No. 4 2003

Performance Incentives within Firms: The Effect of Managerial Responsibility

Rajesh K. Aggarwal1; Andrew Samwick2,3

1 University of Virginia · 2 Dartmouth College · 3 Dartmouth Hospital

open access

Abstract

We show that top management incentives vary by responsibility. For oversight executives, pay‐performance incentives are $1.22 per thousand dollar increase in shareholder wealth higher than for divisional executives. For CEOs, incentives are $5.65 higher than for divisional executives. Incentives for the median top management team are substantial at $32.32. CEOs account for 42 to 58 percent of aggregate team incentives. For divisional executives, the pay– divisional performance sensitivity is positive and increasing in the precision of divisional performance and the pay– firm performance sensitivity is decreasing in the precision of divisional performance. These results support principal–agent models with multiple signals of managerial effort.

DOI
10.1111/1540-6261.00579
Volume
58
Issue
4
Pages
1613-1650
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite