In the paper Reputation Penalties for Poor Monitoring of Executive Pay: Evidence from Option Backdating, forthcoming at the Journal of Financial Economics, my co-authors (Yonca Ertimur of Duke University and David Maber of the University of Southern California) and I examine whether directors are held accountable for poor monitoring of executive compensation.

Theoretical and empirical work suggests that outside directors incur reputation penalties in the director labor market for poor monitoring. However, it is unclear whether these penalties extend to poor monitoring of executive pay. A widely held view—articulated by Prof. Bebchuk and Prof. Fried in their book Pay without Performance—is that there is little or no accountability for excessive or abusive pay practices. Yet no study has empirically examined this question. Part of the reason is the difficulty of defining and identifying “poor monitoring” with respect to executive pay. In most cases, pay levels and structures can be justified on economic grounds (e.g. retention, incentives, attraction of talent) and with reference to the behavior of peer firms. Unless these practices are perceived as clearly “outrageous,” it is unlikely that directors will be concerned about reputation costs. Opacity in pay disclosures makes it even more difficult to assess the quality of pay practices.

(more…)