Shoot the Arrow, Then Paint the Target: CEO Compensation and Institutional Shareholder Services Benchmarking
研究发现，预期CEO薪酬将超过ISS同行中位数的公司，会促使ISS修改同行组，增加自己选定同行的比例，导致同行中位数上升，这些公司业绩较差，试图掩盖高薪以减轻舆论压力。
Abstract We document that firms that expect their CEOs’ compensation to exceed the median CEO compensation of their Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) peers influence ISS to revise these peer sets. Controlling for changes in firm characteristics that ISS uses to select peers, we find that ISS applies an abnormally high turnover rate in the members of these peer sets and increases the representation of focal firms’ chosen peers. This turnover results in increases in the medians of the ISS peers’ CEO compensation and size. We find that these firms underperform and conclude that they attempt to camouflage high CEO pay to mitigate outrage costs.