CEO Pay Gaps and Bank Risk-Taking
研究美国上市商业银行CEO与非CEO高管之间的薪酬差距如何影响银行风险承担，发现较大薪酬差距反而降低风险、提升业绩和透明度，对CEO薪酬设限可能适得其反。
Bank executives’ substantial compensation is seen as one of the factors that contributed to the risk-taking that led to the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We test whether and how pay disparities between CEO and non-CEO executives—the so-called CEO pay gap—influences risk-taking at publicly traded commercial banks in the U.S. We find strong evidence that larger CEO pay gaps are associated with lower risk levels, improved financial performance, and greater information transparency. Our findings are unique to banks and are consistent with the CEO power proposition. We corroborate this proposition by linking larger pay gaps to increased CEO power and low CEO turnover-performance sensitivity. Our results imply that placing absolute limits on bank CEO pay would likely result in increased bank risk-taking.